Genealogy Hack: Stay Focused
Our third installment for our Genealogy Research Hack Summer series is to stay focused. I’ve talked about this before, but it’s crucial during summer to stay focused when you’re researching your family. However, it’s also crucial to give yourself a break when summer is getting away from you. Do not beat yourself up because you can’t stay focused. Instead, expect it and give yourself permission to love yourself when you drop the ball. I will give you some tips on how to stay focused when life is not. Hopefully, it will help you ease your mind.
Genealogy Hack: Pick One Ancestor or Family to Research
This is my number one tip for all family historians. We are used to following one ancestor down the research road until we find a new piece of information. Then we jump over to that new information until we find some more. We then jump to more new information until we can’t remember what we were looking for originally. We call it “Squirreling” because we are easily distracted by new information until we lose sight of our original goal. For example, our goal is to find the birth records for one ancestor. So we jump onto Ancestry.com and find census records for the family instead. We then decide to look at census records for awhile. Then we remember that we still haven’t found the birth records and jump back to that.
Instead make this genealogy hack the new habit. Stay with your original goal until you find it. Or until you’ve exhausted all of your resources. Then you can go back and pick the new tidbit and follow it until you’ve exhausted all of those resources. Basically, you stick with your goal until it’s complete before you make a new goal.
This actually saves you more time and you’re more productive. I know it’s very tempting to “squirrel” around finding bits of information. But trust me, your ancestor’s story will unfold more completely when you follow your goals until completion. Even if this means staying with one ancestor all summer long, that’s ok! Your other ancestors won’t mind!
Genealogy Tip: Search in Collections
I know you love doing general searches when you get on Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org. It’s definitely a great start! I always start there myself when beginning a new search. However, once you’ve gone through all of those, then what? Where do you go from there to find more information? That’s where the collections come in. If you’re searching for birth records, then search in the birth record collection. Are you trying to find census records? Then stay in the census record collection until you’ve found as many as you can for your ancestor. You can search these collections until you’ve either found what you’re looking for or you’ve looked in every related collection.
I like to keep a collections, or resource, checklist next to me as I research. This helps me remember what I’ve already searched and what I still need to search. Once, I’ve gone through the checklist, then I can honestly say that my ancestor’s record is or is not there. Because, let’s face it, we can do a full search through collections and don’t always find what we’re looking for. Right? That’s just part of the deal when we choose to do research.
I love to start with FamilySearch Wiki when I’m ready to search individual collections. I just type in my topic, scroll down until I find what I’m looking for, then read the Wiki page. It usually contains many links that will take me to that particular collection. Then I just insert my ancestor’s info and go from there. I may or may not find the record I’m looking for, but that’s ok.
Conclusion
Remember, you don’t have to do all of these actions in one summer. Just take small moments throughout your day or week to practice these. New habits take time and you have more time then you think. I’m finding that out every day! So stick with one ancestor until you’ve searched everything you can about them. Then move on to another ancestor. Also, remember not to limit your searches to just general ones. Dive into the collections that may hold more clues for your ancestor. If you want to learn more about my previous summer genealogy research hacks, then click on the links below.
In addition, here are some of my previous blog posts on how to stay focused.
In the meantime…good luck and happy hunting
Tiffany
P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for my free download of my favorite genealogy websites. Also, if you’re stuck and ready to get some outside perspective, then go to my work with me page to learn how I can help you.
ancestors, family history, genealogy, genealogy collections, genealogy hack