Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over

Posted on by Kathleen
genealogydoover

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

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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Find a Grave – Sutcliffe

Posted on by Kathleen

While I am starting the Genealogy Do-Over/Go-Over, I am not researching anything new. However, I had a couple of post ideas before I started that I thought I’d still share.

I recently got in the marriage record for Paul Sutcliffe and Mary Senior from the State Archives. The New Jersey State Archives is a wonderful source of New Jersey information for me and I am planning a trip there someday, hopefully soon!

3824-PaulSutcliffe-MR
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Adobe Spark

Posted on by Kathleen

I watched a great tutorial video from Amy Johnson Crow about Adobe Spark. I was inspired to make a video about my grandmother’s ancestors to share with my family. I also attended a Google Hangout with DearMYRTLE’s distant cousin, Sweet Sadie, which was another great walk-through of creating a video. It was a fun, quick process… well besides hearing myself talk. That’s always strange!

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Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines

Posted on by Kathleen
genealogygoover

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

This post is about the procedures and guidelines I am setting up for myself. I even made pretty Word documents, because if I make a list, that means I mean business! I hope at least!

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Decoration Day, 1923

Posted on by Kathleen

In 2011, I posted one picture from my great-grandmother’s collection. It was of a Decoration Day parade in Caldwell, New Jersey. Here is another few pictures from that same day. I happen to also know thanks to Llewellyn’s diary, that her and her mother used to volunteer with her church to decorate the graves of veterans also. She sure was one great lady. I am thinking of all our fallen soldiers today.

Decoration Day, 1923
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Herbert Redford

Posted on by Kathleen
timelinefriday

Herbert Redford happens to be one of my favorite ancestors. I know I’m not supposed to play favorites but I just can’t help it. He is the first ancestor whose record I sent away for. I was so excited and it took quite a long time. It was well worth it though. 🙂 Plus I have this photo I believe to be him. It was passed down through the family and I was given a photocopy of it where someone identified him as “Herbert Redford”.

0288-HerbertRedford-01
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Genealogy Go-Over: Getting Started

Posted on by Kathleen
genealogygoover

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

Okay, so the best way to get through things is to just jump right into them. I’ve learned that about myself over the years. Starting on Thursday of last week, I started getting things ready for my Genealogy Go-Over. The first section of the Do-Over/Go-Over is to clear your slate. I know myself, which means I’m going to have some problems keeping my fingers out of the cookie jar. My intention isn’t to start completely over from scratch. What I do want to do is revisit my current family file person by person. One of the big things that I wanted to happen in my Family File Cleanup was I wanted a good sync between my Ancestry.com DNA Family Tree, my computer database and my website database. I don’t want to have one thing in one, and have to use another for something else.

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Not a Brick Wall but a Brain Wall

Posted on by Kathleen

Just last week, I wrote about how my thinking has changed over the 13 years I’ve researched my family history. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two weeks watching videos and reading genealogy books. It’s very funny how much my thinking has changed over just the last few weeks. The more I learn, the more I realize that I didn’t have brick walls before but brain walls.

lightbulbmoment

The reason I say brain walls is because what used to seem insurmountable, just isn’t anymore. Things are challenging, or they test my knowledge but never does it feel like I’m stuck. Okay, George Thorward sometimes makes me feel stuck. That’s only because I need to get access to more records or learn more about something. It feels like something finally switched in my head. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m analyzing the data better or because I’m becoming more knowledgeable about how to do things. I don’t have a college educated background in research and things, so I didn’t start with all this knowledge on how to write-up reports or do huge research projects. I’m just trying to learn the best I can. Really that’s all any of us can do I guess.

Have you ever had something just click in your head? I’m sorry for all the rambling posts lately, I am just being very contemplative as I get ready for my Genealogy Do-Over.

Credit: Lightbulb image is a free stock photo.