Genealogy Do-Over: My Reasons

This series of posts are based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. πŸ™‚ I just want to say there are parts of this workbook that I am not posting about, so if you would like the full set of tasks, then visit Thomas’ page or purchase the workbook.

Before I get back in the swing of things, I thought it would be nice to see a general overview of where my files stand now. I’d also like to show one of the main reasons that I decided to do this Do-Over. It might surprise you, but it wasn’t because I was shaky about my family tree! I’m actually pretty confident about it. Though, I’m enjoying the process of questioning every piece of information I find.

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Routines are What I Need

Who are you? Where on earth have you been?

Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve updated. I have no excuse except that I was thrown completely off my axis. The day after I left the hospital I received a jury summons notice for the month of October. Usually I wouldn’t have minded this disruption, but this was my third time being summoned in five years. Instead of acting outraged over that, I went with it and got excited about the process. In all actuality, I really enjoy jury duty. The people, the legal aspect, and taking part in the community. Before I knew it, the month was over and I hadn’t sat down to write anything.

At the beginning of November, I realized how long it had been since I did anything except my basic things. I hadn’t been reading, I hadn’t been writing and I’d been existing on a little sleep and a lot of Netflix. That’s okay for awhile, but eventually I knew I needed to do something that engaged my mind more. It didn’t take me long to realize that what I was missing was structure in my days. One thing out of sync and it was just throwing me all off.

Then just as I was sitting down to plan and write this blog, my neighbor passed away. We’ve lived next door to her and her daughter since I was in Kindergarten, so we’re all close and are friends. I’ve been spending a lot of time with her daughter and still trying to keep up with my own household. As a genealogist, I know that the people in our lives are so important, and I’ve been making sure that the people in mine know that. On a production level, that leaves me here, one month later exactly and still behind! Now I’m just wondering where to pick up the pieces and get things back on track. The great thing for me is that I had already started to get very organized, digitally at least!

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Genealogy Do-Over: Update to my Research Log

genealogydoover

This series of posts is based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. πŸ™‚ I just want to say there are parts of this workbook that I am not posting about, so if you would like the full set of tasks, then visit Thomas’ page or purchase the workbook.

The last time you saw a glimpse of my Genealogy Research Log was in the post I made titled: More Prep Work. I’ve made some changes since that post. Once I was working through my immediate family members, I got a better feel for what works best for me.

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Genealogy Do-Over: In the Thick of It

genealogydoover

This series of posts are based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. πŸ™‚ I just want to say there are parts of this workbook that I am not posting about, so if you would like the full set of tasks, then visit Thomas’ page or purchase the workbook.

It’s been awhile

I know its been a little bit since my last Do-Over post. As I mentioned before, I had family visiting and we also had some other things going on around the house. Things are calming down now and hopefully I’ll be getting back into the swing of things. My Do-Over is still going strong.

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Genealogy Do-Over: My Research Toolbox

genealogydoover

This series of posts are based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. πŸ™‚ I just want to say there are parts of this workbook that I am not posting about, so if you would like the full set of tasks, then visit Thomas’ page or purchase the workbook.

This week, I have been taking a little bit of a break from my genealogy. It was partially to do with the holiday and partially because I just needed a little break from it. Throughout the past month or so, I have been working on one of the month five tasks of the Genealogy Do-Over. That is to build a Genealogy Toolbox. I know this toolbox will continue to evolve, so I know I am not looking to “finish” it anytime soon. It’s nice to have everything I might need in one place though. I will just go over the categories I am using right now.

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Genealogy Do-Over: More Decisions

genealogydoover

The series of posts I will be writing is based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. πŸ™‚

I have been ill for that last few days and after a lot of rest, I am finally feeling better! This means I am so far behind in all the tasks I had set myself up for this week. That’s alright though, there’s nothing like a little rest to help you get a clearer thought process!

Here are the things I’m working on this week.

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Genealogy Do-Over: Where I’m At

genealogydoover

The series of posts I will be writing is based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. πŸ™‚

I am still working behind the scenes on a bunch of different tasks for my Genealogy Do-Over.

Most of my immediate family members had previously provided me with their vital information. My form will hopefully help to bring in some cousin connections a little further out from what I previously knew. That doesn’t get me the stories though. Then I had a really great thought while going through the really great tips the members of the Genealogy Do-Over Facebook group gave me. In our shed we have one of those binder machines like this:

bindermachine

Image used from a listing on Amazon.com

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Re-Organizing my Old Blog Posts

I’m here to show you how I’ve become a complete organization addict. I’ve been doing really great at setting my organization up for my Genealogy Do-Over. I am still working on that and still working through Mastering Genealogical Proof by Thomas W. Jones. It’s going against everything in me not to follow some leads that I see in my head as I look at some of my old blog posts.

Speaking of old blog posts. I am re-organizing them. I never really used a consistent organization method with them and that’s what I’m going back and changing now. I have a lot more time on my hands while I work through my other tasks. The most important reason is I want to be able to find what I’m looking for easier. I use the blog as a way of talking things over with myself or others. I think this will help me to remember what I’ve already said on a subject before and to easily find past entries.

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Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over

genealogydoover

The series of posts I will be writing is based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. πŸ™‚

It doesn’t matter much what I call it. However, I was fired up about something this week and I went on a walk to think about things. I try to do that if I really want to think about something. 20 minutes later, I decided I’m opening up a new, blank Legacy Family Tree file and starting fresh. I could spend a lot of time “fixing” my current working file or I could open a new one and start fresh! I am already going through all this trouble of re-examining my documents and re-writing my sources, so why not just start fresh. I wanted to make this decision before I got into any new researching. I’m hopefully setting myself up for never having to do this kind of thing again! I am certainly much more organized already.

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