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Guest Post by Denise May Levenick, The Family Curator, author of How to Archive Family Keepsakes (Family Tree Books, 2012).
Bashing Brick Walls, One Brick at a Time
When I began researching my family history years ago, I thought that locating elusive birth and marriage records would solve my most difficult genealogy puzzles. I was SO WRONG!
As quickly as I confirmed a birthdate, the search turned to finding a marriage, which led to another hunt for the parents of the newlyweds. And, even when I found exactly what I was looking for, I wasn’t always able to confirm a hypothesis or move forward to the next task. I was bogged down in notes, papers, and files. I needed to get organized.
If I wanted to become a more efficient and productive genealogist, I had to become a more organized researcher. Sorting and organizing my inherited family history papers was only the first part of the project; I also needed to shape up my genealogy files and research notes.
I’ve found the single biggest brick wall obstacle isn’t that hard-to-find birth record; it’s often an organizational system (or lack thereof) that keeps us from making full use of that record when we do find it! We can have all the facts at our fingertips, but if we haven’t organized our sources and weighed the validity of the evidence, all we have is a lot of loose information. And, if we can’t find the papers or digital files we need to back up a claim, it’s as though we never found the records at all.
How to Tear Down a Brick Wall
Our organizational brick wall is a lot like the brick wall along my side yard. It isn’t one giant brick. It’s built of individual bricks cemented together to form a strong and sturdy barrier.
My husband is a contractor-builder and I’ve watched him demolish lots of things, including brick walls. He doesn’t start in the middle, bashing one or two bricks held tight by companion bricks and mortar on all four sides. He starts on the top, methodically, carefully, weakening the mortar with hammer and chisel to free the bricks one at a time. After all, those old bricks are valuable. They can be reused in other projects.
“Genealogy bricks” are valuable too. We don’t want to lose the efforts of our research, scanning, and writing.
What bricks make up your organizational brick wall?
- Filing system – notebooks or file folders? or piles of papers?
- Computer filenames – inconsistent filenaming that makes it difficult to find digital files?
- Digital files – misplaced all over your hard drive or USB drives?
- Research plans – hasty logs and incomplete notes scribbled on paper in the heat of a search?
- Source citations – partially recorded source information or photocopies without full documentation?
- Outdated software – at odds with your current operating system or research needs?
- Family photos and documents – scattered, partially scanned, haphazardly stored in shoe boxes or files?
- Inherited keepsakes – stashed in boxes and bins because you aren’t quite sure what to do with them?
I found that by carefully chipping away at individual “genealogy bricks” I could take down my organizational brick wall and move forward toward becoming a more effective family historian. That brick wall wasn’t built in a day and I didn’t have to knock it down in one blow either.
In my new book How to Archive Family Keepsakes: Learn How to Preserve Family Photos, Memorabilia & Genealogy Records, I share the lessons and tips I learned as I knocked down my organizational wall brick-by-brick. I hope the step-by-step worksheets, charts, and checklists can help you break down your organizational brick walls, too, brick-by-brick to effectively organize, preserve, and share your family history.
Guest Post by Denise May Levenick, The Family Curator. Copyright, 2012, Denise May Levenick. All Rights Reserved. www.thefamilycurator.com.
How to Archive Family Keepsakes (Family Tree Books, 2012) ISBN 1440322236
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Join the Blog Tour
Join the Blog Book Tour for How to Archive Family Keepsakes January 10-26, 2013 for author interviews, book excerpts, giveaways, and more. Visit the Blog Book Tour Page at The Family Curator website for the complete schedule.
Proceeds from the sale of How to Archive Family Keepsakes during the Book Tour will help fund the 2013 Student Genealogy Grant founded in 2010 in honor of Denise’s mother, Suzanne Winsor Freeman.
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Each blog tour post comment gives you one chance to win; one entry per post per day, please. Leave a comment at each stop on the blog tour and increase your chances of winning. The lucky names will be announced each Saturday during the tour at The Family Curator.
About the Author
In every family, someone ends up with “the stuff.” Denise May Levenick is a writer, researcher, and speaker with a passion for preserving and sharing family treasures of all kinds. She is the creator of the award-winning family history blog, The Family Curator www.TheFamilyCurator.com and author of the new book How to Archive Family Keepsakes: Learn How to Preserve Family Photos, Memorabilia and Genealogy Records, (Family Tree Books, 2012).
I need to work more on organizing so I can chip away at my brick walls.
Tina, It’s what we’re all doing this month — getting organized! Then on to some productive research. ~ Denise
Organization is definitely the key. In trying to break down some of my brick walls, I have done additional research only to discover that the answer was in my stack of paper all along.
Ginger – I feel your pain! It’s so frustrating to realize we had the answer in our hands, but what a relief to find it at last. Thanks for following the Book Tour.
~ Denise
Looking forward to reading more about how to break down my brick walls with organization. I am sure some of my walls will come tumbling down!
Cheri recently posted..Treasure Chest Thursday- Help Needed! Can You Date My Ancestor’s Furniture?
Looking forward to reading more organizational tips. Source citations are definitely part of my brick wall!
The best part about getting organized has to be the sight of a clean desk, and more time for research… at least for me! Thanks for stopping by on the Blog Book Tour, and good luck taking down those brick walls.
I’ve also started looking over my files periodically. As I’ve learned more about an ancestor, I sometimes will find something in my files that previously didn’t connect but now becomes a clue to removing another brick.
I think my biggest challenge is “Research plans – hasty logs and incomplete notes scribbled on paper in the heat of a search.” When I go back and try to decipher what I wrote I always have questions about what I was doing or what I left undone. I need to be more organized and careful about what I write down!
I feel that I’m digging away at both sides of my “organizational brick wall,” which can always be made smaller. On the one hand, I’ve consolidated my computer files so that I can see them all at once, spread out on my laptop screen. That always helps me feel oriented. I’m hoping Ancestry can print out Register Reports that will give me a well-documented giant family tree on paper, even if it’s only a few generations at a time.
From the other direction, I’m organizing my thousands of photos, scanning them into jpeg folders on my computer, and then transferring them to Albums on my iPad Mini with some new software, so we can look at them whenever we want. For the actual photos, I’ve bought (as you once advised me on Google+ , Denise!) some acid- and lignin-free envelopes, boxes, and interleaving paper.
Now if I can only live 50 more years (not gonna happen), I could finish this entire job! : ))
As a relatively new researcher, I’ve discovered this to be my biggest challenge thus far. Taking it one brick at a time is great advice, because otherwise it tends to be very overwhelming!
I learned the hard way that I needed to document the steps I had already taken in trying to break down those brick walls! You’ve given great tips as to how to organize and keep those records.
We all seem to have slightly different “bricks” holding us back. Those research logs can be a real obstacle, I agree. And, so can the sheer volume of photos and documents we pile up. It’s the old “one step at a time” motto that can get us to the other side of t hat brick wall.
Thanks for joining us on the blog book tour.
~ Denise
I am so guilty of al those bad habits, but working on them so they don’t get in the way of the search.
When I started out doing research years ago, I didn’t have a system at all. I’ve been trying to go back and organize all my old notes and make sure they’re entered into my software database and cited correctly. It’s a pretty slow process, but it’s needed because I still come across things I didn’t realize I already had!
Cheryl and Robyn, You aren’t along about “bad” habits. It’s tough going back, but the rewards can make it all worthwhile. I think quite a few of us end up starting over again with filing systems and organizational methods. If it doesn’t work, fix it!. ~ Denise