Everyone with an interest in their family tree was a beginner once. And it seemed overwhelming. Then we find our way. We make mistakes. We go back and fill in what we missed. After a while, our family trees have leaves on almost every branch.
Is this when some people get tired of genealogy? Do they imagine there's nothing left to do?
If that's how you're starting to feel, you haven't found your passion yet.
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A single spark can ignite your passion for your family tree. |
Finding That Passion
I became so passionate about genealogy that I resented having to work for a living. So my husband and I did the math, and I was able to retire a few years early.
Now I can devote my time to the two tasks that spark my passion.
1. Citing my sources. In 2017 vital records for my ancestral hometowns came online. I downloaded them all to my computer. I decided to piece together tons of families from these towns without citing my sources for now.
Big mistake! Who's going to believe my family tree without sources? So I've been creating all the missing source citations. I've made a lot of progress and should finish later this year.
At the start, more than 9,000 blood relatives in my family tree had no source citations. Today it's down to 814 blood relatives. I push to complete at least 100 people a day. I've gone as high as 180 people in a day.
When I finish the 814 remaining relatives, I'll have 52,000 non-blood relatives to tackle. But they're not as big of a priority. I'll keep working on this project, but it may not get all my attention every day.
This passion is making my family tree valuable to anyone with relatives from my towns. It will be my legacy.
2. Italian vital records. Once I retired, I took things up a notch. Instead of searching the document images for one relative at a time, I began renaming the images. Now they're all searchable on my computer. I name each birth and death record for the individual and their father. For example, take the 1814 birth record of Antonio Bianco, the son of Francesco Bianco. I renamed the image "8 Antonio Bianco di Francesco". (8 is the document number. The di means of in Italian and makes a great shorthand.) The image's folder location tells me the type of record, year, and town. It's in the "1814 births" folder for the town of Baselice.
For marriage records, I name the groom and bride and use the document number. For example, "15 Giovanni Iamarino & Libera Scrocca".
With the images renamed, I can search for a particular name or for all the children of Francesco Bianco. This is a tremendous help when you're piecing together a whole family.
When I finish renaming an entire town's records, I create a spreadsheet and publish it on my website. Anyone with ancestors from my towns can search these files for their people. They can see where to find their documents online. This is a valuable service, so I'm passionate about working on the next town. (See "How to Create and Share Your Ancestral Town Database".)
Now It's Your Turn
What about you? What can you do to keep up your interest and improve the quality of your tree?
Seek out the parts of the family-tree building process that excite you. When you find one, pour your time into it. I'll bet it keeps you eager to come back for more. Here's a checklist to get you started.
- What’s your favorite part of the process?
- Reviewing your online hints. See "3 Ways to Tell If That Hint is No Good".
- Checking out every decent search result. If I discover that one of my Italian nationals came to the United States, I do search for them in U.S. records. Then I do the same for their children.
- Working on one document type at a time. When I decided to improve my downloaded document images, I went through one type at a time. I fixed them in Photoshop. I found it exciting to crop the big black backgrounds out of draft registration cards. Now my images look better and take up less space. (See "How to Improve Your Digital Genealogy Documents".)
- Examining your DNA matches' trees. Sometimes it's a DNA match's tree that tells me who married whom, and who left Italy. These are valuable leads.
- Poring over new record collections. What a joy it was when the New York City Municipal Archives put lots of vital records online. Now I can find vital records for relatives at my desk. (See "When Is a Genealogy Harvest Too Big?")
- What needs improvement?
- Is your style consistent? Add quality to your family tree by using a consistent style for names, places, and dates. (See "Make Consistency King in Your Family Tree".)
- How complete are your source citations? The free Family Tree Analyzer can show you exactly who is missing their citations. It's easy to generate a list. See "These Steps Make Your Family Tree Much More Valuable".
- Do your images need help? Why put a color-faded photo in your family tree when you can correct the color? Why have a huge black border around that ship manifest? You can use photo-editing software to improve all your images.
- Are you happy with your document filing method? If you can't find the document you need right away, you may need a more logical system. See "3 Simple Rules for Managing Your Digital Genealogy Documents" and "3 Rules for Naming Digital Genealogy Documents".
- What can you chip away at each time you open your tree?
I'm lucky to be able to treat this hobby like it's the full-time job I always wanted. But you may not have much time to spend on genealogy. Which tasks can you pick up at a moment's notice and make good progress on? Some suggestions:
- Make a list of your closest DNA matches. Work on identifying the closest match you don't already know. (See "Digging Into a DNA Match's Family Tree".)
- Run any report from Family Tree Analyzer and whittle down the list. For instance, run a Data Errors report and check the results against your family tree. How many can you fix in one sitting? (See "How to Find Errors in Your Family Tree".)
- Start a folder for one ancestor and gather more and more documents to use in their "Book of Life". Keep a text or Word file in that folder, too, with ongoing notes to use in their book. See "How to Create a 'Book of Life' for Your Relatives".
- Keep a detailed note about where you left off for the day. Return to the same task next time without having to jog your memory.
Someone once said choose a job you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life. Well, if you find your passion for genealogy, you'll be glad to work on your family tree every chance you get. You'll feel driven to make it the best it can be.
Go find your spark and light that fire!