Strategy for a Genealogical Project – Managing Research Results and Citations

Posted on February 1, 2019 by Julie Goucher

genealogical project strategyIn an earlier post I talked about strategy, breaking it down into ten segments. Today I am going to write a about managing research results and citations which is essentially segment six. You can read the strategy series HERE

You are likely keen to get started with your project. But before you head off to set up spreadsheets and databases, consider what you want to achieve. By investing some time thinking about this, you will undoubtedly save time in the future.

What are the aims of your project? I have talked quite a lot about aims of a One-Name Study and you can read a number of posts HERE, in the Journal of One-Name Studies and not to mention my series in Family Tree Magazine (UK) during 2019. If you want to develop a website and use TNG then there is no point in creating a snazzy card index or spreadsheet, because you will waste time retyping your material. The best advice that I can give you is to select a piece of genealogical software and use that – Guild members tend to use one of the top three (in no particular order) – Roots Magic, Family Historian and Legacy. All of these have trial versions and I would recommend taking them all for a spin and seeing what fits with you. Spreadsheets do have a part to play and I personally add material to my spreadsheets and see them as a holding pen, before the individuals are added to my Roots Magic programme.

A number of Guild members add every individual to their genealogical program by fact, and then, as they confirm different elements merge the records into one. Some do not mind having rogue, unattached people in their database, whereas I prefer to have folk at least attached to someone else, either by a marriage or via their birth linked to the parents. None of these methods are right or wrong. It has to work for you and it is only by trial will you find what fits with your way of thinking.

As you will at some point be adding individuals to your genealogical programme you will be adding citations and sources to the records. You might find that you have more than one source per event, see this example:

  • Baptism record from the parish record
  • Birth record from the General Registrar Office (GRO) with the index available from any number of the subscription sites or Family Search or FreeBMD
  • Other factors, such as you might provide the source as a link to another study – my own Grandmother’s birth in 1912 will have the both the baptism and birth recorded and I will also link the Matthews One-Name Study as another source, that way we can “cross pollinate” with other studies

The same applies to marriages and perhaps more so, as each marriage has at least two surnames (unless the bride marries someone of the same surname) and therefore can perhaps link into another study. I have a number of Butcher & Howes marriages for example. Of course, it is not necessarily an event linking to another study. Perhaps there is a link to another Guild member rather than a study, an event from a Guild member’s own family history or a recorded submitted to the Guild indexes.

You might decide to keep, as I do a master file of material. I hold my master file in Evernote, but may well move it across to One-Note in the future. I also have a file in Google drive and as I add material to my website I add the images to the file in Google drive with the intention of adding these to the Guild library for safe keeping. I also keep a back up in Dropbox and on a separate hard drive.

When you are researching and gathering material, ensure that you note or record the citation for the record, especially if you are using the web clipper in Chrome for adding material into Evernote. You might recall what you were looking at four hours later, but not perhaps four years later! and there is nothing worse than having to revisit sites because you did not record the citation appropriately. It is also worth mentioning that some indexes are updated from time to time and therefore might need more than one visit.

Again the best advice I can give to someone starting out is do not drown in research material. All the records will still be there in the future, so try and avoid data overload and focus on working on the material you have. However, Guild members are very good at sharing material with others, certainly for my Butcher study not a week goes by when I do not receive an obituary or other communication and it has been known that I have stopped my current work to focus on whatever I have been sent. Nothing wrong with that, but remember to document your sources and research.

I will be back tomorrow with segment seven, chatting about connecting with others and spreading the word about your study. In fact there is some overlap with the last four segments, but think of it as a tapestry, gathering the strands together to make a fantastic picture.

Posted in Genealogy, Introduction to One-Name Studies (Pharos course 901), One-Name Studies, One-Place Studies, Strategy for a Genealogical Project | 3 Comments

Strategy for a Genealogical Project – Research Logs

Posted on January 31, 2019 by Julie Goucher

genealogical project strategyIn an earlier post I talked about strategy, breaking it down into ten segments. Today I am going to write about retaining a research log and the value of it, essentially this is segment five. You can read the strategy series HERE.

As I have mentioned numerous times, I am a prolific note taker. I note all sorts of things down, not just research and over the years I have moved between an online version, held in a spreadsheet and one retained in a note book. My preferred method is notebook and pen, and I never leave home without them!

I do not just record what data set I looked at and for whom, I also record the results, including the negative results. I also date the pages (with the note also indexed at the front of my notebook). At the same time as recording what I have discovered or not, I also build a to do list, essentially what I should look at next. Sometimes those to dos are not just to locate a particular set of information in a data set, but perhaps to locate an image of a location that I can use to illustrate the place or surname.

I talked about how my planning and note taking method formed in this post. As I explained there, I draw out trees as I work through the data, it helps me think and build the to do list. I also shared about building a time line of a specific individual and you can see an example here, in a post about Daniel Butcher, again scoping the information out in the manner enables me to see what information I have AND what I do not have.

One of the important elements is to record where you find material – the citations. The point of a citation is so that you can see where you obtained information from or someone else can follow in your footsteps and arrive at the same conclusion as you or identify something you have missed. By citation I mean, what the document actually is. So using the example from the time line of Daniel Butcher, there are references to Manorial records, those are the citations, along with the reference number allocated to them by the archives that holds them, in this case, Surrey History Centre. Parish records are a citation, so Daniel’s baptism is from Bramley parish records held by the Surrey History Centre and in this case I obtained my copy from both the History centre AND one of the online record providers, and they are listed as repositories.

Tomorrow I shall be looking at managing research result and again that will include citations. Do I have a perfect database for my own genealogy and One-Name Studies? No is the answer. Will they ever be perfect? I hope so, but it might take me a while to achieve what I want. If I was hit by a bus tomorrow would someone be able to pick up when I left off? probably although they would have a lot of filing and scanning to do!

My final message here, is do not strive for perfection. Do not strive to have a complete project before you publish, because that might never happen. Strive for what is best use of your time and adds the greatest value to your study and the genealogical community. I will talk a little later in this series about sharing material and as readers and former students of the Introduction to One-Name Studies course will attest to, I am a big believer in sharing your work and spreading the word.

Posted in Genealogy, Introduction to One-Name Studies (Pharos course 901), One-Name Studies, One-Place Studies, Stationery, Filofax, Journals & Notebooks, Strategy for a Genealogical Project | 2 Comments

Strategy for a Genealogical Project – Focus Elements

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Julie Goucher

genealogical project strategyIn an earlier post I talked about strategy, breaking it down into ten segments. Today I am going to write a about focus elements of a project, essentially this is segment four. You can read the strategy series HERE.

In addition to gathering genealogical data for your surname or place. You can also do a number of other things that add to the foundations of such a study.

One of the things you might look at is the distribution of the surname over time across a particular country or even across the globe. Factors to consider are the mass migration to countries such as Australia, United States and Canada for example from continental Europe and what was the catalyst for that migration at different time frames. Equally you might look at the distribution of a surname across parts of an Empire – migration from the United Kingdom for example to Countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. You might be focusing on an Irish surname, in which case you might see a surge in the 1840’s to the United States, or from Wales to parts of South America. What do those factors mean for a study? Another focus might be a surname that is specifically found in a particular part of the Country and then appears in another random part of the country – are those groups linked? and would could have caused the migration – lack of rural work and increase work availability in factories. Alternatively, when did the railway appear in the area and was that a catalyst for movement?

Other factors are the history of the surname and it’s origins. What type of surname is it? What does the place name mean? Is a particular surname used also as a place name and is that it’s foundations? What about immigrants coming into another country – are their surnames retained, either through choice or through actively altering the name so that it sounded “less foreign” and what time frame might that have appealed to immigrants?

Depending on the type of surname, your research and hypothesis might be different. It would be useful to document down what conclusions you have come to at a particular time. If, at some point in the future your thoughts and conclusions change about the place name or surname, I would document it and date the information, leaving in place the earlier conclusions. That demonstrates to others the evolution of such a study and that is quite important too.

I recommend writing where you plan to search for information on the history or distribution of the surname, what books, software and websites and are those good choices?

All of these factors enable us to dig deep as we research people of the same surname or a location. What appears to be insignificant can actually be a nougat that sets us on a pathway of discovery.

I will be back tomorrow, discussing the value of a research log and plan. Where to record those nougats that set us off on a research path. We discuss some of these elements on the Introduction to One-Name Studies course.

Posted in Genealogy, Introduction to One-Name Studies (Pharos course 901), One-Place Studies, Strategy for a Genealogical Project | Leave a comment

Strategy for a Genealogical Project – Planning Structure of a Project?

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Julie Goucher

genealogical project strategyIn an earlier post I talked about strategy, breaking it down into ten segments. Today I am going to write a about planning the structure of a project, essentially segment three. You can read the strategy series HERE

When I began the early stages of collecting Butcher material it was to some degree scattershot. There was no planning, if I spotted a Butcher reference I wrote it down and usually wrote where I found the material, but on occasions didn’t which is totally unhelpful.

The Guild of One-Name Studies at this time were advocating that those undertaking a study began with the General Registration Office (GRO) indexes. In the late 1980’s that involved going to St Catherine’s House and manually lifting down the books – four a year for births, marriages and deaths, so twelve heavy books a year in total. It also meant trawling through microfilm and fiche indexes to locate records. There was no online, no Ancestry or FindmyPast. There was the IGI, but nothing like the FamilySearch we know of today.

I started my extraction of Butcher material from St Catherine’s focusing on Surrey and Sussex only, that took me over 4 years. I eventually went back and collected the rest of the material later on, but I managed to do a download from FreeBMD, covering the years 1837-1983 for the whole of England and Wales in about 2 minutes – oh how times have changed.

Whether the surname is a popular one of not, you need to decide where you are going to start your data extraction. You could start with the material from FreeBMD and why not, it will take minutes. You might choose to start with the area, whether that is parish records or registration districts where you know your family came from and work outwards from there. Or you might decide to start with Census material or marriages.

There is no right or wrong approach. I choose marriages. A Census has the potential for too many “others” – borders, visitors, servants etc. I make the sweeping assumption that people get married then have children and therefore I can create my family groups from marriages, then go back and look at Census and parish records. You also might start your research outside of England and Wales.

You might choose to start in the area (country or state) where you reside, or where your family resided or where you have easy access to material. You decide where you want to start. Consider boundary changes, Ireland for example was one Country until 1922. From 1922, the country is split with the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland which is part of the United Kingdom. You might choose to work on more than one area at a time, again there is no right or wrong approach

The next question is how to keep material. Spreadsheets or a genealogical programme or both? I use both, but I also have a huge amount of paper because my study started well before the use of a computer. When I teach the Pharos One-Name Studies course, I always say to students that I am envious of those just starting out, because they don’t tend to have the paper baggage that needs to be digitised. I am a prolific note taker. This series was created by using pen and my notebook and I have talked previously about how I use a notebook for my research and how I began my love affair with notes! You can read those posts HERE and HERE. You might also choose to retain notes in One-Note and or Evernote and I wrote about my use of those tools HERE

I will be back tomorrow when I will be looking at the focus elements of a genealogical project, but specifically a One-Name Study.

Posted in Introduction to One-Name Studies (Pharos course 901), One-Name Studies, Strategy for a Genealogical Project | Leave a comment

Strategy for a Genealogical Project – Achieving a Project?

Posted on January 28, 2019 by Julie Goucher

genealogical project strategyIn an earlier post I talked about strategy, breaking it down into ten segments. Today I am going to write a  about achieving a project, essentially segment two. You can read about segment one HERE

The first point is be realistic in your understanding of a project. You will need to invest time as you undertake your research and that be a challenge depending on your domestic commitments. As I said previously, the internet has changed the way we can undertake such projects and we can to some degree sit at home, on our sofa or at our desk and work away. You might have an hour a week to spend or you maybe retired and have significant time at your disposal. Whatever your personal situation, do not let how much time you have available effect your plans. Scope out your ideas and perhaps work with others, sharing the workload.

I have always worked on the Orlando study solo. Yet my Butcher study has had intervention from family members and others with connections to various Butcher families. The amount of connection with others will depend on your approach to “advertising” your work, another factor will typically be that a popular surname is likely to have more interaction with others, compared to a smaller study. The Orlando study breaks that theory because it is a large study with limited interactions from others, and it is only in the last few years, since I began writing about the study that I have received contact from other researchers.

I shall leave you to ponder on how you might achieve your project and I will be back tomorrow, looking at  ideas for planning a project.

Posted in Introduction to One-Name Studies (Pharos course 901), One-Name Studies, Strategy for a Genealogical Project | Leave a comment

Strategy for a Genealogical Project – What Project?

Posted on January 28, 2019 by Julie Goucher

genealogical project strategyIn an earlier post I talked about strategy, breaking it down into ten segments. Today I am going to write a  about deciding on a project, essentially segment one.

What project? 

There can be a whole host of reasons for embarking on such a project, perhaps even more than one reason. Perhaps your ancestors resided in a small geographical area and inter marrying across families was rife. Perhaps you have “misplaced” an ancestor – essentially they are not where you expect them to be. Or perhaps you can not find someone or you have found two someones with the same name, born around the same time, in the same general area. I feel your pain on all of those different reasons!

puttenham church taken 2004

Puttenham Church – 2004 Julie Goucher

I am going to talk about my One-Place study, for the rural parish of Puttenham in Surrey and the neighbouring village of Wanborough, which is separated from Puttenham by way of the A31 road, or as the locals know it, the Hogs Back. My maternal Grandfather was born in Wanborough, his father, Charles Butcher from Wonersh, Surrey and his mother Annie Prudence Harris from Puttenham. In turn, Annie’s parents were from Elstead and Frensham, both Surrey villages and all of these within 19th Century England easy travelling distance and within easy reach of villages in the neighbouring counties of Sussex and Hampshire.

The photo here of Puttenham, shows the font where generations of my family were Christened from 1724.

As I worked back through the generations of ancestors, from Annie, I was repeatedly faced with marriages and liaisons of individuals with the same surnames, all in the same areas. I recall several weeks where all I did was extract material from the Puttenham parish records, which was frustrating. As a way of removing the frustration, I extracted the complete parish records and other information besides.

Looking back, I did not set out to undertake a One-Place Study, it simply seemed a logical progression to my research and as a way of avoiding me becoming totally frustrated. Now this was the days before the internet, so there was no Ancestry or Google. It was all undertaken by visiting repositories and seeing the original document or a microfilm of the original document.

In the modern age with the use of the internet, such a project is actually much easier to undertake, whether you are focusing on a place or a surnames and especially if undertaking a large study although the approach might in fact be very different now compared with the late 1980’s when my studies began. Don’t misunderstand, not all records are online, but a good many are, and in a variety of places.

As I worked back through the Puttenham records, I came across a Butcher family. I already knew that my own line hailed from Wonersh, but now contemplated if this family were connected to my own. That was probably the moment the Butcher One-Name Study was devised, although at the time I did not recognise it as that.

I will be back, looking at how we can achieve such a project.

Posted in Butcher One-Name Study, Introduction to One-Name Studies (Pharos course 901), One-Name Studies, One-Place Studies, Puttenham & Wanborough, Strategy for a Genealogical Project | 4 Comments

Writing about One-Name Studies

Posted on January 23, 2019 by Julie Goucher

Over the course of the last year I have spent a lot of time writing articles about beginning a One-Name Study and used my own as a living and working example. These articles eventually formed a series, generally aimed at those new to Surname research or One-Name Studies, but not specifically so. I believe that you can always learn something!

Those articles are:

  • From a Single Name – Beginnings of an Italian One-Name Study ~ which appeared in the Journal of One-Name Studies ~ Vol 13, Issue 1, pp 30-32 ~ Jan-March 2018, for which I was awarded the Guild of Award of Excellence.
  • Aims, Methodology and Processes of a One-Name Study  which appeared in the Journal of One-Name Studies ~ Vol 13, Issue 3, pp 16-18 ~ July-September 2018
  • Strategies of a One-Name Study ~ which appeared in the Journal of One-Name Studies ~ Vol 13, Issue 4, pp 22-24 ~ October-December 2018
  • Evolution of One-Name Studies – The Butcher & Orlando Studies ~ which appeared in the Journal of One-Name Studies ~ Vol 13, Issue 5, pp 13-17 ~ January – March 2019

These articles did not initially start as a series, it simply emerged that way, beginning from a question posed by a student on the Pharos introduction course which I answered and then turned into an article. I then focused on the aims and processes of my studies, a more general structure and then finally into an article on the comparison of two significant studies (sadly the footnotes and references were not copied across from my text to the actual printed journal!)

Having written the articles, they generated a number of emails with other Guild members and of course, it is often the small comments that yield a glimpse of an idea for future articles and written material. Of course, as I read the journal, I often find that I think or read of other data sets or material that I should explore for my own studies.

Isn’t that the point with reading and sharing information? That we inspire others or perhaps even ourselves, spurring ourselves on to more research opportunities or ideas.

In the meantime, I have started work on the idea for my next article, although what often starts as an idea does in fact change by the time the article is submitted to the editor! I hope by the end of the year to pull together these articles and a few others and publish, but more on that in the coming months.

Posted in Introduction to One-Name Studies (Pharos course 901), One-Name Studies | 1 Comment

Tea for One!

Posted on January 23, 2019 by Julie Goucher

I have always been a huge tea drinker, although a bit of a philistine, nothing fancy or flavoured, but a nice general every day breakfast tea. I sat earlier this week reading a few blogs from fellow tea drinkers. and spotted a book about Tea. teaI went across to Amazon to read the preview to discover that there were two books, written with the same title, by two different authors in two different years. Having read the preview of both books, I can see the tones are very different. As I could not decide which one I preferred, I ordered both.

We have a coffee machine, one of those you put the pods in and hit a button and a cup of coffee is produced. A week ago I wandered across to the coffee machine website to see if they did tea and was surprised to see that they did, although nothing that resembled my regular tea. There was tea with citrus and honey, Chai tea, tea with mint and one other that truly didn’t appeal, or at least enough to buy a box of 16 pods as an experiment. I called their customer service and asked if they produced a mixed tea box. I surely could not be the only one who wanted to try one pod or at the very least didn’t feel compelled to purchase 16 pods on the off chance that the other 15 would not go to waste. The lady said she would feed my comments back to the development team and would see if she could find me one to sample. I thanked her and thought that she would send me one pod.

downloadBy coincidence on the same day, a package from the customer service team that I called last week arrived. In it, a box of 16 citrus and honey pods. I tried one and have to say that I could be a convert when the mood takes me! Hubby also tried one and was equally impressed. I do not like sweet tea, and would have expected one with honey to be sweet, but the citrus and honey in that particular combination is spot on!

I dropped their customer service team an email of thanks and will certainly be purchasing more.  Next I fancy trying a peach tea, if only I can find one!

wkendcookingWeekend Cooking is hosted by BethFishReads and open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend.

Posted in Weekend Cooking | 3 Comments

Keeping a Writing Portfolio

Posted on January 19, 2019 by Julie Goucher

writing imageJust recently I saw a comment from a fellow genealogist, although I cannot recall who, where they stated that they kept a writing portfolio.

Over the years I have kept a list of what has been published, where and when – you can see the list HERE. I also tend to keep a copy of the article, presentation, or proposal that is used or written originally. I often give the same presentation to different groups, although the presentation might be titled the same, the content is potentially different, with links and resources up to date.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on whether I should keep a copy of the printed article, either physically or digitally?

Posted in Writing | Leave a comment

Family Tree Live – 26 & 27 April 2019

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Julie Goucher

I can now share with you that I shall be delivering both a workshop and lecture at Family Tree Live. The workshop will take place on on 26th April and the lecture on 27th April. You can read more about Family Tree Live, book tickets, see when specific workshops and lectures are scheduled for, by checking out the dedicated Family Tree Live web page.

 

Posted in #FamilyHistoryLive, Family Tree Magazine (UK) Surname Series (2019), Genealogy, Introduction to One-Name Studies (Pharos course 901), One-Name Studies, Presentations | Leave a comment