How to Organize Your Family History Research (Genealogy Challenge)

Here is how to get organized with your family history records. Get your genealogy in order so you can focus on that one research question about your ancestors. Doing the method I outline here will help you focus, see relationships and details you never noticed before. Take the Challenge! Get one ancestor organized. This is a must see video. There is a handout for this episode.

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🔴 How to Create a Genealogy Research Notes Template in MS Word

🔴 Good Filing From the Start

🔴 Transcribe & Abstract Documents

🔴 Research Notes

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TIMING
0:00 Intro
0:40 Why get organized?
1:32 Paper files
1:57 Digital fies
2:25 Get notes digitized, organized and grouped
3:20 Scan handwritten notes
3:53 Challenge to pick one ancestor
4:48 Research notes storage and back-ups
6:25 Solve your family history mysteries
7:00 Don’t forget source citations
8:33 Academy promotion
9:00 Challenge accepted?

Best YouTubers for genealogy are Genealogy TV, The History Guy, Aimee Cross Genealogy Hints, Family History Fanatics, Geneavlogger, Legacy Tree Genealogy, , Ancestry, FamilySearch, Useful Charts, Dear Myrtle, Genealogy with Amy Johnson Crow, and 23andMe.
#Genealogy #GenealogyTV #FamilyHistory
Music Credits for Song on Word Tree Open
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[barbaragressel]

Thanks so much for sharing your expertise!

[vickiejones]

I just have to share this. I’ve been stuck on my husbands great grandfather. I took your advice and started going back through notes I’ve made in the past, and bingo! I talked with Grandma Jones back in the 80s and she had told me great grandfathers brothers name and his wife’s name. I’m now getting new hints, haven’t gotten back another generation yet but this is incredible to add to his tree. I’ve learned so much from watching your videos, thank you.

[lhalnan]

Based on some of your recent videos, I have already started working on each of my direct ancestors' folders in my genealogy filing system. I'm already completely digital. I started renaming all of the files consistently and then transcribing the records and abstracting. I've done my parents and am starting on my grandparents. You're definitely inspiring me!

[junebutka]

I'm doing one direct ancestor on one line to the 5th generation. I then add to my hard drive, Google, WikiTree, and send a copy monthly to my sister and daughter.

[SusanBarrettPrice]

Thanks for another good one. I'm pretty organized now, but have learned most of my lessons the hard way. I have just published KITTY'S PEOPLE, a biographical novel of my grandmother's family. The organizational tool I relied upon most was a consolidated (or relational) timeline that showed where all the family members were and what they were doing in any given year and often on any given day. My constant question was "While X event occurred, what else was going on?" What was my grandmother doing when her father remarried, when her dear sister died from a back-alley abortion, when her brother was gunned down in Chicago? Maintained in OneNote, I wound up adding things like what day Easter or Thanksgiving fell on, what the weather was like, when exactly Prohibition took effect in St. Louis, and the tick-tock for the unfolding of the Spanish Flu pandemic in St. Louis. I also added in significant events occurring to FANs when they seemed relevant to the family's state of mind. For two years, this relational timeline evolved and became my chief reference. I had one for the Flanagan family. Then when Kitty married into the Barrett family I put together a relational timeline for them too and continued Kitty's tracking from there. You can't imagine the insights I got from this intertwined time-mapping--including blasting through some brick walls!

I don't know if OneNote was the best tool for this, but it did allow me to easily spin off more detailed descriptions of locales, institutions, physicians, and topics like the early 20th c. grocery business and the various diseases family members suffered from between 1885 and 1934. In the end, a vast amount of detailed information was captured and usefully organized (with sources, when I finally realized how essential they were to avoid rework!).

[Chaimom]

Your videos are so good! Incredibly informative and entertaining at the same time. Love watching them. Thank you for all you do to help us with our family research.

[suzannemcclendon]

I think your 'one ancestor at a time' idea is great.

When I open my external hard drives to try to tame the mess of records, the overwhelm just shuts me down. I have the files broken down like you suggest already, but after multiple backup, I have some records possibly hundreds of times. Some records inadvertently get named with the same name, even though they aren't the same record, so I can't just overwrite the files.

I think your 'one ancestor at a time' idea might help me to control the overwhelm! I can just shut the other folks out of my mind while concentrating on that one ancestor. Doing it that way, maybe I can get these digital files under control before our infant grandson graduates from college. haha

Keep up the good work. Have a blessed weekend!

[martiphone]

Great suggestions!
Way back when I first began researching, goodness 25 years ago now, I started doing paper. Quickly realized how massive that would be so thought long and hard about whether to switch over to mostly digital. Digital won, so did a bunch of research on how to organize my digital files. Many people basically just did their digital the same way they did their paper files. For whatever reason many people seemed to like filing by document; so all the birth certificates are in one file, all the marriage documents in another file. This never made sense to me and I had started keeping my paper files by surname, then given name b/c that's how I was working with the documents. Meaning, when I'm researching, I'm working on everything for a person or family. I'm not looking for ALL the birth records or ALL the marriage records.
Anyway, I set up my digital documents using my file naming protocol to have the computer sort all those files in alphabetical order by surname, then given name, then birth year, event/description, date acquired. Doing it this way all my documents basically in a timeline and no having to open different folders to see what I have for who.
Love your videos!

[MaryLouiseEklund]

Oh this helped me immensely! My father passed away this year. My mother had passed away three years ago. She was a local historian and family genealogist. However when I'd attempt to go into her office to take things of the family and incorporate into my genealogy Dad would become upset. So I never got to address her work until now. Sadly Mom, like most of us, enjoyed hunt and the write up of findings more than organizing her research and documents. Now I'm left with boxes of electronic media (SD cards, jump drives, floppy discs, CDs) as well as paper piles and things of all types. I'm working to establish order to it all. Then comes the integrate into my files (and a few piles of mine will need to be filed if I'm honest). I accept your challenge for not a person but a collection of a lifetime genealogist and local historian.

[henrikeith]

Great video. I immediately felt overwhelmed with no idea where to begin organizing. Glad you recommended taking one ancestor at a time. Thanks!

[Scdudley]

Great information Connie. I already started doing the research notes for one ancestor. Will accept the challenge for another ancestor. Look forward to next Wednesday's class and further discussion on organizing my information.

[barbarawerfal]

I'm starting to do this. And I'm finding a lot more info about this person. Thank you for covering this topic.

[dsbennett]

I have ClearScanner on my Android phone. It lets me create PDF's of documents using my phone camera. It cleans up the document, straightens the edges if necessary. Perfect for capturing documents away from home.

[cynthiataylor]

The tree, know your roots. It's the key 🗝️ Showing my daughter <3 love it!!

[kristinmaycroft]

Love this video, Connie. I am just getting started and have been looking for all help I can find for how to organize the research so I can get started. For me, this one video seems to put it all in one place and so efficiently! I know I will be returning to it again and again.
So glad I found you!

[cindycarrasco]

Thanks for this video. I definitely need to take this challenge on ancestor at a time

[carolynadams]

Thank you for the time you spend to keep us all on the right track and growing. One question, when you say "transcribe" are you referring to placings facts into the reasearch document?

[rayquackenbush]

Me I started doing this a few years ago but life got in the way so I am starting at ground zero but much more excited this time. I am retired so now I have the time.

[claricegirouard]

Thank you for reassuring me I’m trying to get better organized. With back to school sales at Staples, I bought 8 different color 2 pocket binders and 8 matching college rule note books. I’m putting papers I come across on the left side of folder and once documented in Ancestry or Family Tree Maker I am filing them on the right side in chronological order. I acquired STUFF from my in law’s they were cleaning / throwing out after a death in family. How do I date this tin photo? I have my parents’ old photo albums from 1920’s and earlier items. It’s fun….now, I will work on ONE relative and find all I can instead of bouncing all over our tree. Thanks!

[karibear]

I suspect you took a peek at my desk this morning because boy, oh boy, did this hit home. I found notes last night that I took in the earlier days of my research and some were just a name and a date. No sources. No idea where they fit in or why I had jotted them down. I've also learned the hard way to make backups in the cloud because you never know when disaster will hit and you'll be out of a computer. Not even a half hour ago I found a note to remind myself to deep dive into a newspaper for one of my ancestor's home town and now I'm sifting through a gold mine of names, dates, and some terrific stories of their lives. Nothing better than reading about an ancestor who claimed to have had a ghostly visitor he had to "beat off with a broom." LOL