Taken from a recent publication on "Legacy"
Colin
It's almost unbelievable that we're into another year. It seems like only
yesterday that we were in the 1990s and fretting about Y2K and our computers
crashing. And let's not even talk about the number of birthdays we've racked
up! Whereas once we were the youngsters in the family, now we're the
older generation.
Throughout all the many New Year's Days we've passed, we've also undoubtedly
made a host of resolutions about what we would or would not do in the coming
year. Bad habits were to be broken and good intentions were expressed. Well,
I've been thinking the past few weeks about genealogical New Year's
resolutions and about just what would be the ultimate resolution of all. In
"Along Those Lines..." this week, I want to share my vision for the ultimate
New Year's Genealogy Resolution with you.
I Will Not "Procrastilate"
Never put off until tomorrow... is a fine old adage, surely, but it sure
is hard to comply. We all know that procrastination can be damaging.
Postponing those family interviews with the older family members until it
they have died is one of the most common laments I hear from researchers.
This is a situation for which I have developed the term procrastilate--a
case where you've put something off until it is too late to take any action.
Deferring the filing of the documents and other evidence we've acquired
during the course of our research hurts when it causes us to omit facts from
our consideration when we're developing hypotheses for further research.
However, the worst case of procrastilation is what we do--or don't do--with
the source information in our databases and files. It is this which is the
subject of the ultimate New Year's Resolution.
I Will Properly Assess the Value and Weight of Evidence
There's no way we can properly conduct genealogical research if we don't
continually focus on the evidence we acquire. There are two very basic and
important methods of assessing the materials. First, is it a primary source
or a secondary source? And second, are you working with an original document
(or exact facsimile such as a photocopy, certified copy, or a scanned image)
or a derivative document (one that has been transcribed, extracted, or
abstracted and therefore subject to the introduction of errors).
Other considerations that need to be dealt with include WHY the document was
created, WHO created it, whether it is RELIABLE AND ACCURATE, and whether
there may have been any BIAS associated with the content. We must always
maintain a focus on the value of the evidence we've uncovered and both its
authenticity and veracity. This is essential in order to determine the its
proper weight in developing our hypotheses and reaching scholarly
conclusions about our ancestors' life events.
I Will Keep Track of My Research
If you're like most genealogy researchers, you don't keep as careful track
of what you have already researched as you should. This often leads to
duplicate research but more often it results in the omission of researching
important sources. A simple Research Calendar, such as the free one
available at
Ancestry.com, can be an invaluable tool. You can create a
research calendar (or log) for one ancestor or a whole family, or define
another research group that helps you stay organized. I actually maintain
multiple logs for each surname. The first is Research Calendar that covers
print and microfilm resources I have researched; the second is a
Correspondence Record that records written correspondence, e-mail, and
message board postings.
Ancestry.com also has a free Correspondence Record
form you can download.
This double-barrel scheme works for me but you might also want to customize
your own. In addition, you can also adapt the form mentioned above and
create a computerized spreadsheet in Excel or another program with columns
that better reflects your research style and informational needs. The
benefit of using a spreadsheet is that, if you design it properly, you can
sort the information by date, by surname/first name, location, repository,
or some other way for quick reference.
The Ultimate New Year's Resolution
Here comes the wind-up. While all of the things I've discussed above
represent best practices for conducting scholarly research, there is one
notable omission that most all of us have made over the years. Dare I name
it? It is the failure to create and enter meaningful source citations in our
records. When I started playing with my family's history as a ten year old,
nobody was there who knew to tell me the importance of citing my sources. As
a result, I've been playing catch-up for years.
Regardless of whether you are still using a paper-based system or are using
a genealogical database program such as Family Tree Maker, if you have
acquired evidence but haven't entered the source citation into your records,
you have crippled your own research. You weaken yourself by always having to
go searching for the documentary evidence to determine if it is primary vs.
secondary, original vs. derivative, and high quality vs. perhaps not so
great. You also lose track of where you obtained the materials.
Therefore, the ULTIMATE New Year's Resolution for 2005 should be to stop
procrastilating and start entering your source citations into your system.
That may first mean filing the documentary evidence you already have and
then developing a plan. While I am not 100 percent up-to-date, my strategy
for doing these updates to my genealogy database used the following
approach.
- I have binders arranged by surname and then, within surname, by first name
(or forename). Then, under each person, I have filed materials in
chronological order. Everything is filed in polypropylene sheet protectors
for preservation purposes.
- I began with A and took my Alexander family--a large binder indeed--and
began going through, person-by-person and document-by-document, and entering
a source citation for every event that the document detailed. (A document
such as a death certificate could be a primary document for the death
information but a secondary source for birth and marriage information,
parents' names, etc.) The beauty of this approach is that I am working with
one individual at a time and entering all the information I have. I use
Elizabeth Shown Mills' book, Evidence! Citation and Analysis for the Family
Historian, as a guide to proper citation format.
- For the materials that I have for which I was remiss or negligent (or
lazy!) about notating sources, I created a list of those materials. I now
know that I need to document those sources and to enter those into the
database. To make the process simpler too, I stuck one of those colorful
tape flags on the sheet protector containing the document. These are visual
reminders of the work that needs to be done as well as a quick way to get at
the documents that needed sources.
- I input the source citations to the database as I went along and made
notes of the quality of the sources (primary/secondary and
original/derivative). The process forced me to look at each of the source
citations I had entered before, assess the quality of the source, and adjust
the written format of the source to be consistent throughout my database.
- If I identified a missing source, I made a notation on one pad of paper;
where there was a questionable source or one about which I was unclear (or
didn't remember), I noted that on another pad.
I worked through the entire collection of my family documents in the space
of about 6 weeks, putting in between 1-2 hours per night three to five
nights a week. At the end of this stage of the project, I absolutely knew
that the content of source citations in my database was accurate and
consistent in format, with the exceptions of the two to-do pads I
mentioned above. These became part of my ongoing project to clean up the
database. I was able to attack and resolve some of these, in particular the
books from which I had gathered information and notated the book title, by
going into public libraries' online catalogs, locating the books, and then
obtaining the author name, complete title, name and location of the
publisher, and the year of publication.
Individual documents can be more complicated to generate citations for,
especially when you may not remember when you visited the courthouse,
cemetery, or other facility. Internet-based source citations require the Web
address (URL) and the date of access of the site. If the website provided
these pieces of information on the printout, you're in great shape. If not,
you may have to retrace your steps and access the site and the information
again--and hope the data is still there.
I Will Succeed!
Here's where the other P word comes in: PERSEVERENCE. Sure, this is a
daunting project but it is one that can be undertaken when you want to work
on your genealogy but can't travel, or when you just have a few minutes here
and there. The results are wonderful, though. You will have a better overall
understanding of just what evidence you have in your entire database and
will be come better acquainted with your ancestors and collateral lines.
You'll have produced a more scholarly database with content that you can
refer to quickly without having to do an archaeological excavation in the
piles of unfiled materials. You'll also be able to quickly respond to other
researchers' queries of Where did you find that information? Your sources
will be right there at your fingertips.
This is an excellent New Year's resolution that can become a primary project
to help pass the winter doldrums. I hope you will accept this ultimate
challenge to make a clean sweep and get your genealogical database and
sources in top condition before your next genealogical research trip of
vacation.
Happy New Year!