Sunday, May 31, 2015

Tracing Your Roots



  *Create Profiles of Your Ancestors
   
     * Focus on Location

    
      * Research Related Families

  
       *Identify Someone in the Family With a Unique First Name

       *Create Charts to Track Information About Your Ancestors 

        *Search Land Records


        *Map the Entire Family in a Particular Area


~Trish~

FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS!!!!

Looking through the Genealogy Do-Over for week 9, I stumbled on the link below. I love this idea so am going to use the idea under "the goals I set last year": {THESE ARE HER IDEAS AND I HAVE REVAMPED THEM FOR MY EXCEL SHEETS}
               
 Organize Your Family History by Janine Adams (http://organizeyourfamilyhistory.com/)

I’ve decided that my new schedule will be as follows:
  • 1st quarter: Funderburg (my father’s father’s line)
  • 2nd quarter: Hudson  (my mother’s father’s line)
  • 3rd quarter: Smith  (my father’s mother’s line)
  • 4th quarter: Willis (my mother’s mother’s line) 
 I’ll use a progress tracker to see what census, vital and military records I’ve already located by making progress-tracking spreadsheets using Excel. Hoping this will keep me more focused and help me feel less overwhelmed.


  • Fill in the gaps on my progress tracker
  • Make sure my surname files for that line are organized
  • Ensure that everything in my paper files for that line are also organized
  • Fill in collateral relatives on my family tree in Legacy
  • Go up at least one generation in verified information
Making these Excel Sheets for my tracking goal:  {this is a work in progress}

     
Sheet 1: BMD Vitals
  1. Birth records
  2. Marriage records
  3. Death records
  4. Burial records
  5. Grave photos
  6. Obituary
  7. City Directory
  8. Will
  9. Divorce
Sheet 2: Censuses
On the first table, a column for each U.S. Census. I fill in the square (using the traffic signal colors) in green if that record was found, green for it's a "go". An amber square indicates the ancestor wasn’t alive for that census. A red (stop, look) square indicates I still need to find this record. I also have a table of state censuses, so I can note those.

Sheet 3: Military
Here I track what military records I’ve found for each ancestor, by war or conflict and track Draft Cards..

~Trish~

Saturday, May 2, 2015

Genealogy Do-Over – Week 4, Cycle 2: 24-30 April 2015

  Trying to catch up on my Do-Over Blog posts. I am learning from Thomas MacEntee's resources on the Genealogy Do-Over & Ed Thompson how to fill in the gaps from his You Tube video's. Evidentia and Family Search" series is a great learning series to follow for newbies of Evidentia and I highly recommend it. In my week 4,  Tracking Searches, it helps to track the  websites where the search was used. I can enter my  thoughts and make an analysis about the search in the notes. I continue tracking my searches as time permits. Week 5 is Building a Research Toolbox and I think that Evidenta will work fine for me to do this. This quote is from Ed's website "Evidentia not only solves the problems facing the genealogy community, but also simplifies the process of analyzing evidence and creating proof arguments while still following the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS)".  So this is my focus, to learn and analyze and make proof. I need to "really listen" to my sources as they have SO much to say.


~Trish~

Genealogy Do-Over – Week 3: 16-22 January 2015

  Spring is here and trying to keep up with the "do-over" is tough when the garden and flowers are calling me wink emoticon and Thomas keeps giving us new items that are discounted, ie.. Evidentia!!!!......lol,  There is so much to learn and absorb that it is almost impossible to do in 13 week. I have just added this new product to my genealogy finds so I can better collect information, analyze evidence, highlight missed connections and feel confident with my conclusions. On this never-ending quest for one person, one picture, and one place at a time, these are some great benefits to help stay on your path and keep focused.
Benefits of Evidentia:
  • Attach each claim to as many people and events as needed
  • Classify your sources (original, derivative…) and information (primary, secondary…)
  • Easily extract multiple claims from one source
  • Copy similar sources for fast entry
  • Analyze evidence based on reliability in relation to other evidence
  • Resolve conflicts and even reveal possible new directions for your research
  • Easily generate coherent proof reports to show how you reached your conclusion
  • Over 150 built-in citation templates based on Evidence Explained
  • Create additional custom citation templates for quick entry
  • Supports the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) by:
    • Requiring all claims to have a source
    • Fully analyze evidence before reaching a conclusion
    • Finally feel confident about your conclusions and know for sure when you’ve
      done a reasonably exhaustive search