This year I have decided to do Thomas MacEntee’s Genealogy do over. It is a 12 month course in improving your family history research and genealogy skills. You look at the tools to use especially using technology and the methodologies for sourcing correctly etc. You also look at using social media to share research. These things have changed tremendously over the 40 years I have been researching my family history.
There is a workbook you can download or purchase in hardcopy to help with keeping yourself on track. Each month tasks are suggested to help you get back on track with your research and have fun while doing it. See link in first paragraph for the download link.
January Tasks:
- Setting previous research aside
- Preparing to research
The first month includes putting away what you have already done. This could be very tough, but as I am going to start using a new software programme called Legacy Family Tree, this means I can totally start afresh.
I already have over 10000 people on my database using The Master Genealogist, which is now no longer being updated. Names. dates, places have been added via my research, emails from relatives and information gathered from family reunions over the last 40 years. But not everything has sources and I am not sure if I have created the sources correctly that I have used.
So this year will be a great chance to start my database again and add all data correctly sourced this time. I will probably only do direct line and siblings rather than adding all descendants.
My first step is to clean out boxes and folders with lots of hand written data and purchase the Legacy programme. I thought I already had one at home, maybe I will find it when I do some cleaning up in the office area. As I get more work completed, I will keep updating this post over the month of January. From the little bit I have already done today, I am feeling the effects, sneezing most of the evening from the dust.
My second step will be to collate any files about family history that I have on my computer into folders and sub folders by surname. This shouldn’t take very long.
Thomas says anything you have paid for can be used but only the data on that certificate not any notes you might have added. I don’t have very many paid certificates as most of my data has been from microfilm, microfiche and then printed while at the archives in Tasmania. Though I suppose these could count as paid – they were 20 cents per sheet.
The second section about preparing to research means I might put together some check lists of things to find out about each person I am going to add to my database. I found that Cyndi’s List has some to use on Evernote and as I am going to use that for my research records, I will set them out on that. That way I can sync my desktop, my laptop and my iPad with all the same info.
Readers:
Is anyone else doing the genealogy do over? What is going to be the hardest thing or most interesting thing about the first month? Please leave a comment.
Hi Sue. The Legacy program is free off the internet but to upgrade to the deluxe version will cost some extra money. I am not sure if the discounted price is still available or if it ended on New Year’s Eve. There is a Facebook page for Legacy Users which I have found to be very useful as they have some tech people there to help sort out problems. I have found this program to be fairly user friendly and if nothing else it allows you to quickly learn your individuals and their relationships to each other. I like the fact that all the children born to an individual regardless of how many partners they had show up on the common parent’s page. Children from outside the current relationship that us opened will be shown with a 1/2 and the name of the other parent after it. I also like the red circle with ! In it that indicates there may be a problem with your data such as parents not married, time frame between a marriage and birth of child etc. Recording sources is easy once you have the gist of it and if you use mater sources then add detail. I have found notes I have included in Family Tree Maker don’t always fit into provided space for notes so to overcome this add all the information under Events such as birth details, baptisms, death, education, residence, employment, military etc.
I am looking forward to reading more about your journey. Good luck.
Hi Marilyn,
I have just found a brand new Legacy 6.0 disc and user guide sitting on my bookshelf so am going to see what the differences might be between the free download and buying an upgrade to version 8.0 which I think is the most recent version. I might check in with the facebook Legacy Users group as well. This is going to be a great year for genealogy for me, I can tell. Already have the office area half cleaned so I can get better organized. Lots of coughing and sneezing though from the dust stirred up.
I am starting over in Legacy with a goal of direct ancestors and siblings. I look forward to sharing this journey with you.
Thanks for leaving a comment Karen. I did some cleaning up yesterday and found a Legacy 6.0 family tree book and disc on my bookshelves. It hasn’t been opened yet so hopefully I can load that then upgrade to whatever the most recent version is. Do you have a blog where you are going to document your journey?
I bought legacy 8 to start over just before finding out about the Genealogy do-over. I realized, from doing the Intro. to Family History course, that I needed to be more disciplined with my research.
I’m finding Legacy a bit hard to navigate as I haven’t got used to it yet. Having read Marilyn Grogan’s post above, I will connect with the Legacy FB page.
I am no longer following any smart matches with my online tree, which has been put on hold.
Thank you for this site Sue
I have also decided to do the Do Over. I haven’t really got my head around it yet, but I plan on reading the workbook today.
I think the hardest thing for me will be putting aside all the research that I have done. I have several large folders of hard copies, not to mention all the information that I have on Family Tree Maker. Like Sue, I have thousands of names on my family tree so there is a little bit of an emotional attachment to them.
The other difficult decision that I have to make is whether I am going to use Legacy or Roots Magic. I have downloaded the free versions of both, but I haven’t really looked closely at either of them yet. My step son has promised to buy me whichever one I want for Christmas, so I really need to do some research and decide.
Hi Sue
I am also doing the Do Over and on reading through the first month’s notes, there is mention of the book ‘Evidence Explained’. Is there an Australian equivalent that maybe cheaper, as $US52 is quite expensive. Would appreciate any advice you may have in this regard.
Thanks, Rae
Hi Rae,
There is a blog for the book Evidence Explained https://www.evidenceexplained.com/
There is also a facebook group https://www.facebook.com/evidenceexplained
Here is a post by an Australian Genealogist about the book http://heritagegenealogy.com.au/blog/evidence-explained-with-thanks-to-elizabeth-shown-mills/
Here is where you can buy it in Australia – still expensive but the book is 888 pages long
http://www.gould.com.au/Evidence-Explained-Citing-History-Sources-p/gpc3843.htm
Hope these help Rae