A successful morning of research at the library…

…and I never got out of my car!

The Covid-19 pandemic will soon mark it’s first birthday in the United States (remind me not to go to that birthday party!), so a trip to the library is no longer a routine event.

When you went to the library a year ago, must-haves included pencil and paper or a laptop computer or tablet. Maybe some quarters to make copies. That’s about it.

But today, it needs to be a carefully planned trip:

1. check hours of operation – probably shorter now
2. number of people allowed in the library at one time – frequently 10 or less, depending on the size of the building
3. social distancing – 6 ft, not everyone can crowd around the same conference table anymore
4. masks required
5. handwashing – don’t forget that little bottle of hand sanitizer!

And still there is a health risk, especially for the elderly or those folks with chronic illness.

So how do you get your Ancestry.com fix without risking your very life?

I don’t have a private subscription to Ancestry.com. It’s just not in the budget, folks. But my local library does offer Ancestry.com, if you use their wifi. I’ve been told that the Library Edition of Ancestry.com does not offer as much as a regular private subscription does, but I’m ok with that.

So you have to be physically in said library to use said wifi, right? Maybe not…

This morning, after I ran some errands, my laptop and I stopped at my local library, parking right at the front doors. I opened up my laptop and was easily able to pick up the library’s wifi signal. I went to Ancestry.com and started my research. After about 45 min, I had a (virtual) stack of paperwork: 16 years worth of city directory listings for my great-grandfather, James Dixon Carr, as well as an entry in the Social Security Application and Claims index for him!

And I never got out of my car.

About those darned source citations

As I mentioned in my last post, I pretty much stopped doing genealogy for a few years because I was just burned out. I think part of that burnout was caused from trying to get the paperwork just right. I’m a perfectionist, so if it ain’t 100%, it ain’t nothin’! It just became too much.

And what paperwork am I referring to? SOURCE CITATIONS, of course! In the past, I have been very rigid about how my citations look, trying to follow the examples set forth in Elizabeth Shown Mills’ book Evidence Explained: History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. I wanted them to be perfect, of course! After all, genealogy without documentation is just mythology!

But that desire for perfection can be very stressful, especially over the long haul. Hence, the burnout.

So today when I was working on one ancestor’s file, I found some census records at FamilySearch.org. Below the actual census image can be found information, including the source citation for that particular image.

Consider this census page for my great-grandfather James Dixon Carr:

And here is the accompanying source citation:

“United States Census, 1900,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6Q3Q-4ZX?cc=1325221&wc=9B7B-W3F%3A1030553601%2C1035452301%2C1035452302 : 5 August 2014), Texas > San Saba > ED 129 Justice Precinct 1 San Saba town > image 16 of 18; citing NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

There it is, the Evidence Explained-inspired source citation, patiently waiting to be copy-&-pasted into a database! No stress in doing that!

So that’s what I will do when a correctly-formed source citation is available. Of course, I’ll still have to write my own citations occasionally, but I think this new practice should go a long way in alleviating stress and preventing the dreaded burnout.

I think it’s time to get back into genealogy

I have done very little research in a long time, years really. Why? I think I just got burned out. Life goes on. Priorities change.

But maybe my priorities have changed again.

Besides, it’s the dead of winter, there’s a nasty pandemic lurking, and I’m about done with Spring Cleaning!

And did I mention that it’s snowing heavily? (We rarely get snow…)

So, time to reassess what data I already have, what I need and how to manage it all.

A few days ago, I cleaned out my closet and located all my long-lost genealogy files. Well, two large plastic storage boxes full of chaos, actually. I went through those boxes and designated one for “finished” files (each person already has a separate plastic folder) and left the other box for open files (a gob of papers clipped together by surname).

And I’m gonna conduct my research a bit differently. In the past, I have focused on each family unit: mom, dad, kids, spouses, grandkids. Many surnames bouncing around in my head.

This time I am gonna just look at one surname at a time, and follow that surname wherever it leads.

Also, I’m trying to cut down on paper. I have printed out tons of genealogy forms over the years (census, family group sheets, etc). I’m just gonna try to stick with the original images, which I have started to upload to my OneDrive account. So the only actual files I’ll keep will be original documents and images. Everything else…to The Cloud!

I have hopes that someday, genealogy software will include census forms… ya listening, RootsMagic???

The thing about yearbooks

High school yearbooks. So important to high school kids. Photographs of students, teachers, administrators. Activities, such as clubs, sports, band. Autographs. Memories. Pretty much all things high school.

And in Small Town, America, high school yearbooks really document the entire community.

My Dad has spent his entire life as a mechanic. He specializes in foreign car repair and owned his own repair service for many years. And in his younger days, he built and drove Volkswagen Beetle race cars! I have photos of some of those race cars and have located several advertisements for his business in Fort Worth Star-Telegram archives. But he also owned that business in Arkansas and Colorado. How to document the Arkansas location? The only apparent way to search through the local newspaper’s old issues would be to take a trip to Arkansas. But was there another way…

It suddenly occurred to me to look in my high school yearbooks! Such books frequently contain advertisements from local businesses, as a way to help pay for the books’ printing costs. So I quickly located my 4 annuals and flipped each one open to the back of the book, where the ads are located:

Here are the advertisements from my 1973, 1974 and 1975 De Queen High School yearbooks! TOO COOL!

Genealogy wasn’t fun anymore

I haven’t done any serious research in a long time… years, actually. Just lost interest. Burned out. Distracted by…

To be brutally honest, the effort to create the perfect source citation just killed the desire. I am a perfectionist, and could probably be obsessive-compulsive with little effort. Very little effort. Daily, I have to stop myself and force myself to step back and see the whole picture, rather than obsess on the tiniest detail. I can walk past my dining room table and if the centerpiece is not absolutely centered, I have to adjust it. If the pillows on the couch are not in the best possible alignment, I have to stop and realign them. When I was in college, my grades had to be all A’s, or I would get really upset. Gradually, over the years, I’ve learned to temper my perfectionism. Will the world end if there’s one dirty dish in the sink? Probably not.

But I allowed that perfectionism to take over my genealogy research and documentation. I became so stressed over trying to make sure every source citation was by The Book, down to the last comma, that I gave up. It was just too hard. Genealogy wasn’t fun anymore.

But, for the past month, I have been “doing” genealogy almost daily. I went back to the beginning. My generation, my parents’ generation. I’m currently working on my maternal grandmother’s file. Going back and reviewing each person.

And yes, each fact has a source citation. With rare exception, if it doesn’t have a verifiable source, it doesn’t go in my database. And, in general, the citations follow the rules set forth in The Book. In general. I read somewhere, long ago, that a source citation should be able to easily lead a person to that source. Whether it be in an online database, a library or a courthouse. My citations do that. They may not be perfect, as set forth in The Book, but they get the job done. If my next-door neighbor knocked on my door and asked me how I know that my great-grandfather worked for the railroad, I could show her my file on him and she could easily locate the same documents that prove his employment.

Not perfect… and that’s ok.