Category: Genealogy Do-Over

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.

Oh No! What did you do?

I can only blame today’s events on the craze of holiday preparations. There has been so much going on that I haven’t been thinking straight. This doesn’t mean that I regret what I just did, because you’re going to be excited for me too. In the interest of full disclosure though, I just did something that probably should have waited longer in my Do-Over.

Just Tell Us!

What you see above is a screen shot of my unfinished shopping basket at the UK General Register Office website. That’s right, I ordered records! You didn’t hear me wrong, I got more than two!

You might be asking yourself why this could be considered a bad thing. First things first, I did this after 9pm at night. That means I’m doing it when my mind isn’t at its best. I’m pretty tired and I’m probably not thinking my best right now. Secondly, I probably should have waited until I reached this point in my Do-Over to spend any more money on records. I mean, what if I’m wrong and these aren’t my people?

To be fair to myself, I have been steadily working my way up the family tree and ordering records along my main line of descent. There’s no way to work up the family tree but to order records, go to the repositories to get the records, find the records online, or hire someone to find them for me. I’ve chosen the first option for now!

Well, since you did it, you might as well show us the rest!

The website has changed since May, when I last used it. You are now able to search the indexes. Well, that might have been there before and I didn’t notice. I usually just get the GRO Reference details from Ancestry or FindMyPast’s Indexes. This time, all I had to do was put in the information I knew off the top of my head and hit search! I got 1 result! The best part is that in this search, it is showing me that his mother’s maiden name is Beattie. The other indexes don’t tell me that!

Note from blog writer: I know that if I was doing a reasonably exhaustive search, I’d be doing more than an exact search. It was 9pm and not 9am though and I wanted to buy four records, not seventy. haha! Don’t worry, I won’t sully my new, beautiful, organized, sourced, exhaustively looked over file. 

That doesn’t mean that it is your guy though.

This is my family file before the Do-Over. I know, I’m not supposed to be looking at it but I am and we’re moving on from that. 😉 You might ask why I put the Richard part in the search since it’s a middle name. Well, in 98% of the records for William Richard Parkin, the Richard is shown. Even after his death, in city directories, Ann lists herself as “Richard Parkin’s widow”. You can also see in my old file that there was a big question mark for the maiden name of his mother. I have her birthplace from the England censuses but I had no clue about her maiden name.

I’m also ordering the birth record for Ann Maltis/Malthouse/Malthuse/Mattis/Whateveritis. What is wonderful for me is that in the marriage record I found for a William Malthouse, my guess on the name of his wife was Amelia Lilburn. It looks like the GRO office index agrees with me on that spelling but not the surname spelling of the father. Oh well, you can’t win them all!

Okay, but I’m still not getting why you are beating yourself up about the old file.

The short of it is, I would have loved to have been “good” and stay away from my old file completely. These lines have been dormant for a long time for me. To have any movement is so refreshing. I’m not “actively” researching this old file. I’m still chugging along on my Do-Over at a slow, wonderfully organized rate. Being able to order these records ahead of time is going to save me time later. If you’ve ordered records from another country, then you know why! It takes awhile to get them here, but it’s oh so worth it!

Besides, my file wasn’t that messed up along the main line, it’s the siblings where things started getting murky. Mainly because I have actually ordered records for the main line. Imagine that, it’s more accurate when you actually seek out the proper documents! Ha!

Note from the blog writer: I use the term actively loosely since technically ordering records is an activity and it has to do with my old tree. We’re moving on though, remember!! Besides, there’s no way to rule out records without actually looking at them. See, I’m thinking rationally even though it’s currently 10:37 pm.

Previous Posts in this Series:

• Genealogy Do-Over Index

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.

Before I get back in the swing of things, I thought it would be nice to see a general overview of where my files stand now. I’d also like to show one of the main reasons that I decided to do this Do-Over. It might surprise you, but it wasn’t because I was shaky about my family tree! I’m actually pretty confident about it. Though, I’m enjoying the process of questioning every piece of information I find.

Before my Do-Over

The one thing that was frustrating me the most in my genealogy research was that I could never find anything. It was all organized but I felt like I was constantly clicking around for things. The above screenshot was just my birth records. I could use my identification numbers and find things or I could look for the right number but it wasn’t very efficient. I felt like if I was trying to find something, I could never find it. It wasn’t until I was starting my Do-Over and I realized that when I was looking for people, I was thinking of them by their names. The numbers were just distracting me! Once I made the decision to throw out the numbering system, things seemed to start moving along a lot better for me!

After my Do-Over Started

From the screenshot above, you can see this is just one person! Everything for my Grandpa Moore is in the same place. If there is someone else involved in that record or in the picture, they’ve got a copy of the file in their own folder. I’ve named every file so that if I know the year, it’s right in the file name. It’s also easy to see at a glance where my blanks are in terms of the years. Just looking above, I can see I don’t have digital files for the years between 1935 and 1940. I also jump from 1958 to 1967! This gives me the motivation to say, “What was happening in these years?”

What else is different?

Another thing I am doing different this time is smaller than everything else. I’m actually adding pictures! It isn’t that big of a deal, but I find that it makes me smile when I’m jumping around the tree and I’m seeing my cousins, my siblings, and their children’s faces staring back at me. It makes me remember the reason I’m doing all of this.

You last saw my Binder Index Excel file in August in the post, Genealogy Do-Over: In the Thick of It. The only change I’ve made is the new tab for “Digital Records”. It seemed silly to me to be so detailed for my paper files and treat the digital files like they were just as important. The only change I made was in the first column, where I named it ‘Downloaded’ instead of ‘Scanned’. The one thing I am also doing but isn’t being shown is I’m slowly adding everything into Evidentia. I don’t know why, but for some reason I didn’t add some of my digital records into the program. Now that I am going to be generating proof reports for everyone, I really need to add those records in. It sure is a good thing I’ve actually been keeping track of my records or I would already be sunk in my Do-Over!

Thanks for hanging in there for this recap, hopefully we’ll start getting back into the fun part soon! 🙂

Previous Posts in this Series:

• Genealogy Do-Over Index

This series of posts is 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.

The last time you saw a glimpse of my Genealogy Research Log was in the post I made titled: More Prep Work. I’ve made some changes since that post. Once I was working through my immediate family members, I got a better feel for what works best for me.

It is the same basic things I had before, but it’s a little more compact. I went with less fields because I found myself not using the previous version. That defeated the purpose all together, so I sat down and made something that I knew I would use regularly. All the vital things are in there and with my current digital filing system, I’m hoping I won’t miss those extra fields.

Using the filters feature, I can quickly find anything I need by person or type of record. I still analyze the documents in the log and have a citation for each record. The screenshot above shows what I see when I look on my second screen with the file open. There is only one field not visible and that is the “Proven” field.

Moving the list of records to find to my research log was a great idea. Its much more efficient in this file. It is right in line with my workflow. I am able to add something in right when I’m already elbow deep in my research. I very easily move from tab to tab from beginning to end. I think the only thing I would change is the order of the tabs. Moving Search Attempts to the beginning would make a lot of sense.

I’ve obscured the names in my Plan Tab for privacy sake but this little gem is the reason I’m able to know exactly where I’m at in my research. This really helps because I took a break after my brief hospital stay and I’m only just now looking at it again. This tab was born from my previous file that was my Research Plan/Goals. This is streamlined for me, so I can see at a glance what key facts I still need to look for. As a basic guideline, this really helps me and I can easily add to it if I chose to. This will fill in pretty quickly for my immediate family members but once I move on to earlier generations, it’s going to help so much!

Previous Posts in this Series:

• Genealogy Do-Over Index

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!

Previous Posts in this Series:

• Genealogy Do-Over Index

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.

This week, I have been taking a little bit of a break from my genealogy. It was partially to do with the holiday and partially because I just needed a little break from it. Throughout the past month or so, I have been working on one of the month five tasks of the Genealogy Do-Over. That is to build a Genealogy Toolbox. I know this toolbox will continue to evolve, so I know I am not looking to “finish” it anytime soon. It’s nice to have everything I might need in one place though. I will just go over the categories I am using right now.

Calculators: All genealogists need calculators. There always seems to be some kind of math needing to be done and I don’t like to hunt around looking for how to do some of those calculations. So I have a calculator folder. Right now, there are only a few links in it, but I don’t really know which calculators I will need until I am researching again.

DNA Websites: I’ve got all the DNA websites at the click of a mouse.

Education: I had a more extensive list of Genealogy Education links at one point but have lost them. Lucky for me I know that DearMYRTLE and her Cousin Russ did a hangout on this very topic, so I plan to re-watch that and rebuild this list!

Locality Resources: These are for the smaller, local websites that I like to use. Sometimes it is just a county or cemetery website. These links don’t fit into my other categories.

Reference Materials: My biggest section! In the main folder I have one link, the CDC page on Where to Write for Vital Records. Then I have subcategories for Analysis, Guides, Historic Terms and Link Websites. There are links to Cyndi’s List, the FamilySearch Wiki, WorldCat, Evidence Explained and many more in this section.

Search Websites: This the second biggest category. It’s for the actual search websites. This one might seem like the biggest at first because it has more subcategories. It’s not though, it probably has less links than my Reference Materials category. I don’t know though because I haven’t counted. I do know that I use the reference section a lot more than the search section right now. As you can see in my screen shot, there are categories for the big sites (Ancestry, FindMyPast, FamilySearch, etc), cemetery sites (Find a Grave, BillionGraves), Germany, less used sites, Maryland (mdlandrec.net), New Jersey (State Archives), Ohio. You get the picture, this is for the more “official” locality websites and then the big search websites.

Societies: This is where I am keeping a list of the societies in my local area, the areas where my ancestors lived, and other miscellaneous societies I thought I would need.

Conferences: I haven’t been to a genealogy conference yet, but I am actively researching them. Right now the only link here is Rootstech because I’d love to go to that one day.

Shopping: Right now there is only one link here and I moved my Archival Supplies category into this folder. I have been watching the webinar series given by Melissa Barker over at Legacy Family Tree Webinars. She gives lots of great information on how to archive your documents. She is an archivist so I’m definitely taking lots of notes. Including the websites she recommends to use for purchasing the right supplies.

You might be asking why I didn’t give a more detailed list, well that’s because I am putting the whole list up on this website! It can be found under the My Tools heading in the menu bar or by clicking this link. Feel free to bookmark it if you wish. Just remember that it will be constantly evolving. 🙂

Other Posts in this series:

• Genealogy Do-Over or Go-Over?
• Genealogy Go-Over: Getting Started
• Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines
• Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over
• Genealogy Do-Over: Where I’m At
• Genealogy Do-Over: More Decisions
• Genealogy Do-Over: More Prep Work
• Genealogy D0-Over: My Research Toolbox <- You are here

Source List:

1. Thomas MacEntee, The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook (Kindle Edition);GeneaBloggers (http://www.geneabloggers.com : downloaded 31 December 2015), Month 5.

This series of posts are based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂

First things first, I finally cleaned off my desk the best I could.

I will probably clean off all that stuff on the left eventually, but I need to get some more storage solutions for that. I cleaned off a ton of different books and papers. Only things I will need as I work are on the desk. This has probably been one of the most helpful things I’ve done. I’ve already noticed that I am a lot more focused than I’ve been in the past.

The other thing I did was I decided I wanted to overhaul my bookmarks. They’ve been a mess for years and I was so hesitant about it for about 5 minutes. Then I decided I would just clean out my Google Chrome bookmarks and start fresh. It’s amazing how much easier it gets to start fresh.

The fun part is I am still building that Toolbox and adding to my Genealogy bookmarks almost two weeks after I started fresh. This has also been a HUGE help in keeping me focused. I took off bookmarks to all my news, celebrity, and other time-wasting websites… Except Facebook because I use it daily to help my research. I have found that I don’t even miss those sites. If I get the urge, I just go ahead and type the address manually. I have found that if I have to go to the effort of typing it in, I don’t bother to go. That probably makes me sound very lazy!

Last but not least, is the research log. Sorry for the blurs, but I’m sure you understand. I am using a template that was generously shared by Thomas MacEntee. I have tweaked it a bit to help me use the filters feature more effectively, because I do love the filters feature. I am still trying to decide if I will be keeping just one log or doing one for each surname. Right now, I think I am leaning toward one for each surname but I just can’t decide yet. I figure I can always copy and paste later into a new file if it becomes too much to handle. I will fill you in on the research log more when I start adding in someone I don’t have to worry about privacy blurs with. Right now I am still working on adding in my living relatives.

Other posts in this series:

1. Genealogy Do-Over or Go-Over?
2. Genealogy Go-Over: Getting Started
3. Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines
4. Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over
5. Genealogy Do-Over: Where I’m At
6. Genealogy Do-Over: More Decisions
7. Genealogy Do-Over: More Prep Work <- You are here.
8. Genealogy Do-Over: My Research Toolbox

Sources:

1. Thomas MacEntee, The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook (Kindle Edition);GeneaBloggers (http://www.geneabloggers.com : downloaded 31 December 2015), Month 4.

The series of posts I will be writing is based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂

I have been ill for that last few days and after a lot of rest, I am finally feeling better! This means I am so far behind in all the tasks I had set myself up for this week. That’s alright though, there’s nothing like a little rest to help you get a clearer thought process!

Here are the things I’m working on this week.

1. Setting up a Research Log

I am still looking into the best way to set this up for my research. The hard part is figuring out what will work best for my research when I’m not currently researching. This will most likely change plenty as I go along but I’m probably going to start adding in responses from my form and my cousin’s information to help me get the log going. I will let you guys know what that looks like as soon as I figure it out myself!

If anyone has some research log tips, I’d love to hear them!

2. Digital Organization

The second that I decided I was going to open an empty Legacy Family Tree file, I created a problem for myself. Was I going to keep my current organization method or change it? Was I going to keep my current file name method or change it? The answer is I don’t know. I did a previous write-up on my working digital organization. That was working well for me, except for the OneNote part where I never really got it up and functional. I still want to do something with OneNote, I just don’t know how. The more I read from other researchers, the more I take in what they are doing and see that I could be more efficient in other ways.

PROs to changing my system

• I really like the way people use a surname to separate their files. Mine is currently setup by record. If I were to organize it by surname, I wouldn’t have to flip through folders when working on just one ancestor.
• Starting fresh and re-organizing everything will help me make sure I have every record entered and analyzed for each person.
• I would better be able to see which records I am missing for each person.
• Using an alphabetical system might be easier to navigate than the random numbering sequence I had used before.
• Greater ability to keep family groups together. You can tell from my screenshot that before everything was sorted by number. That number was given as a person was entered into my program. That means records for one family group could be thousands of records apart. If I switch to a surname based system, it would be easier to group families together.

CONs to changing my system

• I am really used to my current system and changing could cause me a lot of confusion.
• My numbering system is going bye-bye. It would be too hard of a process to try to keep the numbers the same. This means renaming every single digital file. (This is not necessarily a bad thing.)

I have some more things I’m working through but not quite ready to blog about yet, so you can be sure I’ll be back once I do. I’m sure hoping that when I decide what to do this time it is for the final time! I hope you all are doing great in your research endeavors. 🙂

Other posts in this series:

1. Genealogy Do-Over or Go-Over?
2. Genealogy Go-Over: Getting Started
3. Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines
4. Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over
5. Genealogy Do-Over: Where I’m At
6. Genealogy Do-Over: More Decisions <- You are here.
7. Genealogy Do-Over: More Prep Work
8. Genealogy Do-Over: My Research Toolbox

Sources:

1. Thomas MacEntee, The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook (Kindle Edition);GeneaBloggers (http://www.geneabloggers.com : downloaded 31 December 2015), Month 2 and Month 4.

The series of posts I will be writing is based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂

I am still working behind the scenes on a bunch of different tasks for my Genealogy Do-Over.

Most of my immediate family members had previously provided me with their vital information. My form will hopefully help to bring in some cousin connections a little further out from what I previously knew. That doesn’t get me the stories though. Then I had a really great thought while going through the really great tips the members of the Genealogy Do-Over Facebook group gave me. In our shed we have one of those binder machines like this:

Image used from a listing on Amazon.com

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of that little machine and I finally sparked an idea about how to get some of the stories down.

I’m in the process of using a bunch of different interview suggestions from Legacy Family Tree and making a book to send to each one of my Aunts, my Uncles, my Cousins, my Parents, and hopefully my Great-Aunt too. I’ll probably even fill one out for myself.

The other thing I am working on in the background is my research goals. I wasn’t sure how to go about this but again, the Genealogy Do-Over community was a big help. In the files, the author Thomas MacEntee shared an example of his research goals and it absolutely clicked for me. The way I am going about this now will help me to stay accountable for each fact. I think it will even better track my research. The best part is, it’s a Word document on my computer and I can always edit it.

Sorry for all the blurs, but most of the people in my research goals are my living cousins. What I really like is that by using the headings settings in Word, I can collapse each person when I’m not working with them. When I am working with William Lawrence Moore, I will be able to assess him deeper and add in Prove his land ownership or Prove his occupation. I really believe this will help me out tremendously!

Thanks for sticking with me through this transition period!

Other posts in this series:

1. Genealogy Do-Over or Go-Over?
2. Genealogy Go-Over: Getting Started
3. Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines
4. Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over
5. Genealogy Do-Over: Where I’m At <- You are here.
6. Genealogy Do-Over: More Decisions
7. Genealogy Do-Over: More Prep Work
8. Genealogy Do-Over: My Research Toolbox

Sources:

1. Thomas MacEntee, The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook (Kindle Edition);GeneaBloggers (http://www.geneabloggers.com : downloaded 31 December 2015), Month 2 and Month 3
2. Microsoft Word, but you could use Google Drive.

Disclaimer: There is one link to the Amazon product I talked about and one link to Thomas MacEntee’s book page. The links I provided are not affiliate links and I receive no compensation for sending you to the websites. Once you leave this website, I have no connection to any products or services you might purchase.

The series of posts I will be writing is based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂

It doesn’t matter much what I call it. However, I was fired up about something this week and I went on a walk to think about things. I try to do that if I really want to think about something. 20 minutes later, I decided I’m opening up a new, blank Legacy Family Tree file and starting fresh. I could spend a lot of time “fixing” my current working file or I could open a new one and start fresh! I am already going through all this trouble of re-examining my documents and re-writing my sources, so why not just start fresh. I wanted to make this decision before I got into any new researching. I’m hopefully setting myself up for never having to do this kind of thing again! I am certainly much more organized already.

While I am conducting my family interviews, I am re-entering myself, my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncle, and cousins all into my clean file. I had previously went around at a family reunion and got dates from my cousins on one side and my Grandmother had all my cousin information from the other side. I still wanted to do something to make sure I was getting the right information though, so I created a Google Form that I’ll be linking to in my sidebar and on my Facebook page for family members to fill out if they want to.

If you are a family member that would like to check out the form, you can click here.

I have also been entering all my documents into Evidentia as I go. I will probably do a post on Evidentia soon! I am working on entering in all the birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, and obituaries that I have for my grandparents down to my generation. It’s actually surprising me how much information 1) I am lacking from some things and 2) How much information I have for others. It’s a fascinating process. Going over everyone again is going to really help out my research. I can just feel there are holes in it and I’m only working with a small amount of information now. Can you imagine with how long I had been working previously how many holes I had in that file? I guess we will find out!

Other posts in this series:

1. Genealogy Do-Over or Go-Over?
2. Genealogy Go-Over: Getting Started
3. Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines
4. Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over <- You are here.
5. Genealogy Do-Over: Where I’m At
6. Genealogy Do-Over: More Decisions
7. Genealogy Do-Over: More Prep Work
8. Genealogy Do-Over: My Research Toolbox

Source List for this Post:

1. Thomas MacEntee, The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook (Kindle Edition);GeneaBloggers (http://www.geneabloggers.com : downloaded 31 December 2015), Month 3

2. Evidentia Software

3. Legacy Family Tree Software

4. Google Drive – Google Forms