Two Weeks In And I'm In The Groove ~ Motivation Monday

Thanks to Suat Eman
shared at Freedigitalphotos.net

An Update on my January Genealogy Goals

Research

• I am busily working through my Shoebox on Ancestry.com and have downloaded and saved 75 “international records.” By mid-week I will switch my Ancestry.com membership from World to USA.  I have not uploaded my family tree to Ancestry and so have not taken advantage of any “shaking leaves” to further my research.  This is something I might do in 2012 and would love your thoughts on the value of uploading a tree to Ancestry. 

Organization

• Research collected in my paper Norwegian and Swedish Notebooks is now scanned, filed, and entered in my Legacy database (these notebooks are much smaller now).  Onward to my Norwegian and Swedish Digital Notebooks, where I hope to employ the same “clear the decks” determination!  How are your organization projects coming along?
• I continue to organize my USA Census Excel Workbook.  The census citations for all USA and State censuses are in order and the 1900-1930 census entries are up-to-date (downloaded, abstracted, and assigned/linked) for all family and extended family in my Legacy database.  I plan to write about this project and show examples in next week’s Motivation Monday post.  After that it is onward to the 1800s censuses.  Thankfully most of my family wasn’t in the USA until the 1860/1880 timeframe but I do have several “related” or cluster families to check out.  This is a work in progress to get ready for the 1940 US Census release in April.  A little bit each week should get the project done in time.  How are you coming on preparing for the 1940 Census release?

Blogging

• I posted for the first two weeks of the 52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy meme (only 50 more to go!).  It has been helpful not only to think and write about Amy Coffin’s weekly prompt, but also to read others’ responses.  This week, Jennifer of 'On a flesh and bone foundation: An Irish History gave some great tips for free Irish research websites.  Are you contributing to this meme? If so ~ how is it going for you?  If not ~ why not join us and share your knowledge?
• I need to work on blogging consistently ~ there are so many distractions!  Definitely an area where I need improvement.

Writing

• I finished writing a “guest blog post" about my family’s slide/photo scanning and organization project for Marian's Roots and Rambles, written by Marian Pierre-Louis.  I just need to add a few more photos and email it by midweek.  It was quite helpful to revisit and write up the process we used for this project (and gain a cheatsheet to pass on to the next family memory keeper).  
• This is so much fun that I feel guilty considering it a goal ~ I love reading and commenting on posts in my Genealogy Bloggers Circle at Google+.  What a great community (I don’t think it is a distraction yet but I will need to set the timer and limit myself so I get some work done!).

Education

• Another guilty pleasure – oh wait, I am learning so much there is no guilt.  January started strong with the following webinars and radio shows:
• Me and My Laptop ~ Linda Woodward Geiger through the Southern California Genealogical Society (Saturday, 7 January)
• Linda was an amazing speaker and provided us with such an incredible wealth of information (one of my February goals will be to incorporate many of her organization tips).
• 10 Ways to Jumpstart Your Genealogy in 2012 ~ Thomas MacEntee through the Illinois State Genealogical Society (Tuesday, 10 January)
• Thomas gave a great presentation and his slides were clear, concise and a pleasure to watch.
• Tax Considerations for Your Genealogy Business ~ James M. Beidler through the Association of Professional Genealogists (Wednesday, 11 January)
• James took a rather dry topic and really livened it up.  I learned so much through his presentation as well as the terrific audience questions and comments.
• The FamilySearch Research Wiki and Your Genealogy Society  ~ FGS My Society on blogtalk radio (Saturday, 14 January)
• Lise Embley discussed how Societies can use the FamilySearch Research Wiki to get themselves out there – lots of great links to check out (who knew?).  Lee James Irwin of the Fairfax Genealogical Society spoke about his society’s programs and projects.  Both Lise and Lee were interesting and informative.

What were your webinar and radio show finds this month?  Do you have any suggestions for the next two weeks?

The first two weeks of January were a great start

Keep climbing one rung at a time to reach those goals!

Thanks to renjith krishnan
shared at Freedigitalphotos.net

One of My Favorite Things – Microsoft Excel

As anyone in my family will tell you numbers are not my thing.  I think that is why I never had much use for Microsoft Excel in the past.  However, Excel has become “my new best friend!”  In my previous post I mentioned that I acquired a great deal of "raw data" or genealogy information while researching online sites and at the FHL.  Now I was in St. John's for a limited amount of time and I wanted to "fill in the blanks" and see if I could acquire additional raw data.

First, a little background.  The Rooms (PANL) does not allow researchers to photocopy church records and most of the vital records registers are on microfilm (there are no provisions for scanning microfilm records at PANL – I believe they allow photocopying of microfilm but I decided it would be easier and less expensive to transcribe the information). 

While I was at PANL and the Centre for Newfoundland Studies (CNS) I decided that I would make a point of transcribing the following:

1. King’s Cove Roman Catholic Baptism Records – this record appears to be maintained only at PANL and at the Archdiocese Archives at Grand Falls (which does not appear to be open to the public)
2. King’s Cove Roman Catholic Marriage Records – same as above
3. Newfoundland Vital Statistics - Birth Register, 1898-1923 (Books 4 - 13)
4. Newfoundland Vital Statistics - Marriage Register, 1922-1923 (Book 10)
5. Bonavista South Region – Voters’/Electors’ Lists – The 1928 Voters’ List is on-line at the Grand Bank's site, however there are several additional Voters’ Lists located at CNS and PANL.  While I was there I photographed the following Lists – 1890, 1900, 1928, 1932, 1946, 1948, 1955, 1962, 1966,  1972, 1975, 1978, 1985 and 1988.
6. Bonavista South Region - Directories - Various of the directories have been transcribed and are on-line at the Grand Bank's site, however, it was nice to be able to photograph the directories (included various advertisements) as well as photograph some of the more recent directories - 1877, 1956, 1959, 1964, and 2008. 

Each day I sat down at the microfilm reader with my notebook computer to read and transcribe the information.  This is where Excel came in to play.  A caveat - I was not all that familiar with using Excel for data entry of text but having played around a bit with the program, I have determined that it is a real timesaver (check out the on-line Microsoft Office tutorials to learn how to make the best use of Excel).  I took a look at each series of documents I planned to transcribe and determine how the information was entered in the document.  Next I made a worksheet for each document I planned to review.  For my purposes I set up the worksheet based on the order the information was presented in each document as it made it easier to input the information (with Excel you can always rearrange the columns after the fact). 

For instance, for the King’s Cove Baptism Records the church register tended to be in the following order:

Date – Child’s Name – Sex - Father’s Name – Mother’s Name – Place of Baptism – Sponsors – Priest – Additional Information

 An example of the data entered in from the Register

I entered the information on a worksheet for each volume, book or reel so that I would be able to write up a source citation for my work AND entered the information in individual cells so that it would be easy to work with later.  Additionally, I put all of the information from each individual worksheet into a summary worksheet, entitled “Sorting Reel” (the combined information for any series of records) and in this worksheet I added columns for RIN, MRIN, Notes, and Source (a reference to my scanned jpeg which enables me to cross-reference my genealogy program and my scanned documents).  The Notes column gave me a place to make any notations, for example - unclear spelling, notes included by the priests, prior marital status, thoughts on any potential relationship.

Once all the information is entered in Excel, it becomes a simple matter to use the sort and/or filter functions to zero in on information important to a particular researcher.  For example, having entered all of the information from the King’s Cove Baptism Records into Excel I am now able to search by surname and get all children of a particular couple, search by community, search by surname of either parent, spouse(s) and/or child (which I can confirm by searching through my marriage worksheet or my death worksheet). Now, when I work with my genealogy program, I am able to tell if I have included all marriage, birth, baptism, and death information (and cite to the appropriate records).  Additionally if a fellow researcher or potential relation contacts me, I can quickly find information that may be of interest or use to them.

My Sorting Reel Page – Sorted Alphabetically

As you have probably gathered, I am not only interested in my particular family but also the community and surrounding communities.  My grandfather left home at an early age and he died long before any family members became interested in genealogy.  We do not know where all of his relatives scattered and I have found that tracing my Keough family involves working backwards, forwards and sideways. As a result and due to the distance involved in Newfoundland research, I found the best use of my time to be acquiring as much information as possible from  all the research facilities available to me.  Entering all of the information into my Excel worksheets and my Legacy Family Tree database is definitely a work in progress!

Final Thoughts: 

1. If you do not use Windows and/or Microsoft Excel, there are several open source programs available to you, including Google docs Spreadsheet.
2. How do you organize your research information, what has or has not worked for you?

Next time ~ back to the Newfoundland Research Seminar.