I’ve decided to start getting back into family history again, because it’s a heck of a lot of fun and I feel good when I do it (not to mention that it’s a commandment, of course :)). Now, I’ve made this decision several times in the past but with no results, and I’ve started thinking about what I can do to change things this time. Here’s my plan:
1. Focus on a single family. There are so many lines to research that I often get overwhelmed with wanting to do it all. And so I’m going to focus on my Iavicoli line (from Pescara and Castiglione Messer Marino in Italy), starting with Raffaele Iavicoli and his wife Anna Lucia Caldarelli. (I have a bit of a headstart here because I spent a couple months doing research on his family a few years ago.)
2. Write out the stories. For me, temple work is definitely important, but the stories are what I really eat up. Without the stories, it’s just names on a sheet. With the stories, however, the people come to life, and that’s when I really start to love them.
3. Figure out a better system of organization. PAF is great, but it’s Windows-only, and I’m on a Mac, so for now I’m going to use good ol’ paper along with Google Docs. I can’t sit around forever waiting for a good Mac genealogy solution to show up.
4. Blog about it. Because that helps me. :)
Now I just have to make time for it all…
Comments
I don’t know if you’ve ever used werelate.org, but I think it’s pretty useful as a means of organizing and documenting research.
I haven’t looked at it in about two years, but thanks for the reminder!