how methodical are you with your research?

[PATc3]

This all sounds familiar.

 I've been digging since the 1980s and it was lucky to have lots of certs and paperwork left by my ancestors - is there a hoarding gene ? I had a FamilyTreemaker freebie and put it on there to help and reduce my paperwork or so I thought.

As my job involves a lot of research/fact-checking and so on I am (mostly) quite methodical but I confess that a mouth watering new find does set me off like a dog after a scent and I do like to roll in it too !

I have been writing my family history since William Hague had hair, but it never gets done. I have found it best not to add too many branches of branches for each new person - if you know what I mean. Though I keep those on a separate tree as often I find what they were doing or where they lived may help in my brickwalls.

So I've made working lists of the main lines and then followed the 'direct' men or women in that. I still keep a notebook, files for each main line and box of certificates in alpha order, but must admit to scraps of paper that I can't read at my desk even now.

I intend to spend time 'housekeeping' it once a month and have it in mind that someone will want to pick this up after I'm no longer around as so the more neat it is the more likely they are not to bin it all.
Perfect !!!

[Vicki Morley]

I think I need to copy jbml a little.  As that was written in your post, well it sounds really organised!  I prefer to use paper rather than a PC (my tree is on Ancestry and thats all).  I am a fan of notebooks.  I think I will get a nice large one and try the numbering method - a page for each person.

[ThrelfallYorky]

I prefer to use paper as far as possible, but admit that in addition to a rather beautifully drawn out tree heading back up from me to the earliest references in 1580s, of my direct paternal line, that took a great deal of visual planning out, on the largest sheet of paper I've ever seen, strongly re-inforced on the reverse, I've a large, bulging loose-leaf file for each major surname, for self and other half, several box-files of related information, mini-trees for each "married in", "twigs" on other sheets for descendants from siblings of main people.... A4 sheets min-tracing each census 1841 - 1911 for each family..... and I usually know I've got the info I want to check/incorporate somewhere .... if only I can lay my hands on it.... soon.... be back to you when I've found it...

[Finley 1]

I used to be so Methodical -  but nowadays --- bloomin useless. 


xin

[annesthreads]

I have been writing my family history since William Hague had hair, but it never gets done. I have found it best not to add too many branches of branches for each new person - if you know what I mean. Though I keep those on a separate tree as often I find what they were doing or where they lived may help in my brickwalls.

I like the idea of the separate trees for the more remote people - thank you.

[andrewalston]

The manual processes described by jbml can be automated by most decent family history software.
I use The Master Genealogist, for which sadly support is ending, and all those features are there.

The list of persons can be accessed by pressing F2 - and can be sorted in various ways too.

The Gazetteer can be brought up at short notice on-screen. Select an address, then click a button to list the events which took place there. These two lists are extremely useful as I try to work out who is who in my One-Name Study.

Pictures (and scans of documents) can be associated with anyone they relate to - in my tree a single picture of a church might be tied to dozens of people.

The "Table of Forebears" is the Ahnentafel report, and there are reports for just about everything else, if you feel a need for hard copy.

All in all, I think you are missing out by not going electronic. Just find a program which works in a way you can get with. Most give you a free trial period before you cough up any cash.

[hullnow]

I try to be methodical,keeping notes nice and tidy in a note book,but to no avail.Info seems to take over and before I know it bits of paper and notes all over the place.As the poet Rabbie Burns wrote,"The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft astray."

[jbml]

All in all, I think you are missing out by not going electronic.

I don't.

I've got a system that works in a power cut; that I will always understand; that I won't have to re-learn when they "improve" the software and stop supporting what I've got already; and that always does everything the way I want it to because I designed it.

I use electronic tools to find information.

I use traditional filing and archive skills to keep track of the information once I've got it.

My system forces me into the discipline of reviewing, checking, and cross-checking on a frequent basis, which helps keep important information to the forefront of my mind when I'm researching. It works for me. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine, too ... there's room for more than one approach.

[sirsimon]

I record things as I go, though I tend to focus more time and effort on families and lineages that are closer to me, for example I will put more research into my maternal grandfathers family than my great, great, great, great grandfather's wife's family