This series of posts are based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂 I just want to say there are parts of this workbook that I am not posting about, so if you would like the full set of tasks, then visit Thomas’ page or purchase the workbook.
It’s been awhile
I know its been a little bit since my last Do-Over post. As I mentioned before, I had family visiting and we also had some other things going on around the house. Things are calming down now and hopefully I’ll be getting back into the swing of things. My Do-Over is still going strong.
This Do-Over has been great for me in one big way. I am moving much slower than I previously was. When I open up Legacy now, I see all this information entered in and it makes me feel confident. The best part is that the only records I’ve used so far are my paper records. I haven’t touched a big search site for census records or city directories yet. I haven’t searched Newspapers or obituaries. Everything is either a vital record or a family heirloom. This means there is a lot of information out there yet for me to find!
Why It’s Taking So Long
You might be wondering what is taking me so long. That probably has to do with my check and balance procedures. To be honest, I haven’t looked at the ones I wrote up in a previous post. Once I got to work, my procedures just happened naturally. I do have a little help though, to keep me on track. In my first post, Getting Started, I showed a screen shot of the Microsoft Excel file I named “Binder Indexes”. This is what that file looks like now:
It sure has come a long way from where it started. Every once and awhile I will have a slip up and have to go back and add something I said I wouldn’t add to the tree before. When I was making the switch from my paternal grandparents over to my maternal grandparents, I had to stop and double check by using my filters.
Microsoft Excel Filters to the Rescue
In my opinion, the filters function in Excel is the most useful feature. I use them all the time. Even now when I look at the red boxes, I’m telling myself I can probably go ahead and add those things into my file also. They were scanned and added to my digital organization, just not into the family tree. The only reason I didn’t add them already was because I didn’t think any new information was given in them. Thinking back now, I think I was probably just tired.
This section of my Dad’s family is the most documented section. Not counting photos, which number in the hundreds, I have tons of documents saved by Llewellyn that need to be analyzed. If you don’t hear from me for awhile, you know where I’m at!