The Big Genealogy Do-Over

Thomas MacEntee sure knows how to get the genealogy community buzzing. His Genealogy Do-Over has been the main topic of everyone's conversation on Facebook for past couple of weeks. And it's a good thing. It's got people thinking about how they are researching, how they are citing sources, how they are organizing their data, how they are labeling their data and all the things that often times get left by the wayside when you are heads-down researching.

 For me, the thought of a total Do-Over seemed overwhelming. I'm trying to prep for spending two productive days in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City before FGS in February. And I decided right from the start that the family I wanted to research in Salt Lake City was MY family. For the past few years I have been concentrating on everyone else's family and my genealogy has been shoved into folders and sadly neglected.

So in some ways thinking about a Do-Over came at both the right time and the wrong time. What to do?? I decided I would do a Modified Do-Over - or as some people are calling it, a Go-Over.

First I had to do a re-set and get myself organized. I started by cleaning out my desk in preparation for setting up my two brand new big monitors. And here's where I have to confess. I am, sadly, a pen hoarder. I had pens in every drawer, in every container and all over the place. I ended up testing every pen I found and threw out tons of non-working pens. But now I have a nicely organized pen drawer. Yes it's a small victory but it's a start right?

Here's a picture of my newly organized pen drawer. (Feel free to laugh here!) Desk organized and new monitors set up, I started on other things.






Here's what I've accomplished in Week One.

• Decided on and wrote down my file-naming convention. For me, keeping it simple was important. I decided on Year Record Type County State FirstName LastName.
• My folders are set up by surname and within each surname I have sub-folders for Cemetery/Obituary Records, Census Records, Military Records, Probate, Vital Records. I will probably add one for Land Records and perhaps photos. So everything for one surname goes into the proper surname folder. 
• I also took advantage of the 50% off sale for Folder Marker and devised a color coded system for my folders. Not sure this is a great help but it looks pretty. 
• Next I went to work on Evernote. I had originally set things up in lots of notebooks but realized I would hit the 250 limit of notebooks sooner rather than later and started switching over to the tagging system and getting rid of most notebooks. This will be an ongoing task to get it cleaned up but I've made a good start.
• I then used Evernote to set up my genealogy goals for 2015. I followed a system proposed by Michael Hyatt, setting up a list of goals and then linking each goal to its own note. Within that note I'll put all the tracking information for that particular goal including the reason for the goal (or what I hope to accomplish), Actions (with checkboxes for each item), Progress and notes. 
• For example, my first goal is to Prepare for SLC trip. 
• My actions at the moment include:
• Review genealogy (duh)
• Build book/film lists (FHL catalog gives you an easy way to do this)
• Review FHL info so I understand layout of library, hours, where things are, etc.
• Print out family trees for each person I'm working on
• I'll add more as I think of them. 
• And I've already accomplished one thing -  I have completed my Simpson Co KY book/film list.
• Base Practices and Guidelines - I've actually written down the naming convention and what each color of folder means. I've started noting anything that I want to be sure I always do the same way. Consistency!
• Genealogy Tools - although I know this is later on - I've started a note where I'm listing my genealogy tools including the software I use, the major websites I use and the genealogy societies I belong too. 

And finally Legacy.... About 6 months ago I made the move from FTM to Legacy. I've been working through my database ever since. It has been my Genealogy Do-Over, starting at the beginning, redoing all the source citations, following the same processes for each person, and checking on what else is out there now. This means that I've also started making lists of non-online resources I will need to check.

I'm still a paper person so I'm putting families in notebooks and working my way from the beginning on. I back things up to Dropbox and to an external drive (occasionally). I have a tree on Ancestry but it is an old tree that is not maintained and eventually I'll replace it with something different.

My biggest challenge is finding the right research log and then using it. I use the To-Do lists in Legacy for things I need to do. But have struggled with a Research Log.

I'm learning SO much from everyone and that to me has been the main benefit of this Do-Over Challenge. So thank you Thomas MacEntee!! You are a genius.