Research is fun, but it can feel frustrating when you feel like you’re just spinning your wheels. Having a research road map can help you focus and make more progress, stated Amy Johnson Crow in her class I attended at RootsTech 2019. Amy compared our genealogy research to a road trip. If we just want to go for a drive, it doesn’t really matter what route we take. However, if we want to arrive at a certain destination, then choosing a correct route makes ALL the difference in our arriving at our desired destination. The same is true with our research. If we know what we want to accomplish and stay focused on it, we are more apt to be successful.
This is a great objective for me personally to remember. Have any of you, like I have, started out researching one of your ancestors only to find yourself later wondering where you started? You know what I mean. I’m working on my maternal line. I open a 1900 US Census trying to place the John Smith, the father of the family, in a certain area, compare a birth date and determine his occupation to differentiate him from the other John Smith in the same area. But then…, I notice there’s another daughter listed so I need to add her. Also, the census record lists the mother gave birth to 10 children and 6 are still living. But adding that additional daughter only brings the total number of children in my record up to 7. So, I start searching for 3 other missing children. On that journey, I find a website I haven’t seen before, and it has a really cool link to a database I haven’t seen before but it looks like it may have some information about my paternal line, and so it goes. I’ve been on a great journey, all over the place, but I haven’t accomplished much nor have I arrived at my original desired location.
It is truly difficult to work on all our family lines at the same time, and it’s oh so easy to get sidetracked even within a given family line. Amy gave some great suggestions to help us stay focused and remember what it is we are looking for:
Set a goal: Which line or area are you focusing on now? Are you trying to complete a specific project such as a scrapbook, photobook, or lineage project?
Ask a good question: What are you trying to find? Having a specific question in mind will help you stay focused and help you remember what it is you’re wanting to find.
Re-examine your notes and sources: Establish a point of where you are beginning. Your old notes and sources may reveal new information to you now you have added more information.
Review and evaluate what you have: Are there better sources you could be using. What sources haven’t you researched?
Spot gaps in your research: Are there time periods or aspects of your ancestor’s life that you haven’t researched? Timelines are a great tool to help spot gaps.
Amy Johnson Crow’s RootsTech2019 presentation, The Research Road Map: Your Path to Success, can be viewed at https://www.rootstech.org/video/the-research-road-map-your-path-to-success-amy-johnson-crow Click here to view it. It’s a great class on how to focus your research. –Debbie Brady