It’s almost time to think about making New Year’s Resolutions which usually involve fixing some fault you see in yourself. Maybe a better idea is to make New Year’s Plans – positive ideas to make your life happier and more productive. In genealogy, there are three main ways to do this: Focus, Organize, Share.
Carol Darrow
Focus: It’s easy to get overwhelmed when your goal is to find out everything you can about everyone in your family tree. Your research can easily just skim the surface without discovering what kind of person your great-grandfather really was. Instead, pick one person or couple and focus your research on a new couple or person in your family tree.
Organize: One of the simplest ways to organize the piles of information you’ve gathered is to use a three-ring binder. Put all the documents for one couple and their children into the binder in chronological order. Add tabs to divide up the generations. Add a table of contents and perhaps a family tree for that couple.
Share: Some of us have close family – a slew of first cousins you grew up with who share many of the memories and traditions of the family. Some have found geni cousins, people working on the same family line who have never met. They would all be interested in your findings so you need to find an easy way to keep them involved. Maybe you could create a circulating letter where each person adds a fact or two to the group’s knowledge. Maybe you could work together to solve a mystery about grandma’s father.
With a definite plan in mind, you will be amazed at the progress you can make. Instead of trying to dig into the whole family at one time, focus on an area that intrigues you. It’s never too late to plan ahead.
~ Carol Cooke Darrow teaches beginning genealogy at the Central Denver Public Library on the second Saturday of each month.