Issue 7.13
Washington Irving said, “Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.” If you set a family history related goal this year, here are some tips to make that happen. First you write down your goal; your second job is to break down your goal into a series of steps. If past research habits have included just randomly typing names into online databases, then it may be time to change them. Make a plan, decide who you want to work on and what you want to accomplish.
Clean up your family tree. Use https://familysearch.org/tree and review your family tree for incomplete or incorrect data that can impede future research success. Explore a new resource, search for some historical records and link them to your ancestors, try to prove or disprove what is already recorded about your family. Tidy up your sources.
Back up your data if you are keeping a personal genealogy software program. Make an appointment to do this regularly. Keep the backup either in the cloud (dropbox.com for example) or keep a USB Drive copy in your safety deposit box or at a relative’s home.
Contact your cousins and see if you can find who has the missing pieces of your family history puzzle. Social media makes this easier than ever, so reach out to those relatives and glean knowledge from them before it’s too late.
Record family stories and go beyond the name gathering and ask why? Why did they move, why is there a six year space between these two children? Why was this guy born in North Carolina and christened in England?
Scan your photographs. Scanning is easier than ever before, you can even snap pictures of them with your smart phone. Learn about digitizing photos and storing them. Visit https://familysearch.org/photos/ and store your photos online.
Attend a conference. You can learn so many new things at a genealogy conference and there just happens to be one coming up on February 22 and 23 at The Dixie Center in St. George. See www.familyhistoryexpos.com for details. You can also watch live streaming events from rootstech.org starting on March 21, or go to Salt Lake and be a part of the experience.
For more information, contact Shanna Jones shannasjones@msn.com or 435-628-4900.