How to Become a Genealogy Efficiency Expert

A production line mentality is 1 of 4 concepts to make you a family tree efficiency expert.

I started this blog because my business approach to genealogy was somewhat unique. I build my family tree using as much discipline and efficiency as I used on the job. That approach made me more productive than my work colleagues. Now it's the reason why I make so much progress on my tree each day.

Family tree-building efficiency boils down to these 4 concepts.

1. Stay in One Place

I had a great time last month following "6 Steps to Finding Your Living Cousins." But there were times when I felt overwhelmed and had to take a break. I got bogged down in processing all the different types of documents, facts, and citations. If I started with one man born in Italy, and tried to find his living descendants, I had to find:

• His immigration record, extract the facts, and add the source citations.
• His census records, add new family members, addresses, dates, jobs, and give everyone their source citations.
• Vital records for each family member and add facts and source citations.
• Obituaries, search for any new names, gather more facts, and add source citations.

It could take all day to do this for one immigrant in my family tree. Having so many types of documents to find felt exhausting.

But, if you choose one type of resource, you'll spend less time moving around. You won't have to think as much because you're repeating the same few steps over and over.

Here's an example. What if you had a book filled with information that applies to certain people in your family tree. Instead of finding every document for those people, work through the book. You'll fall into an efficient pattern of work.

I own one such book (see "Imagine a Register of Your Entire Ancestral Hometown"). It's a detailed description of more than 500 households in my grandfather's hometown. As I worked through the households, it became easy to follow the same steps:

• Locate the right family.
• Go to the head of household and copy the book's description of his assets and family members to his notes.
• Create the source citation and copy it to each member of the household.
• Move on to the next household.

It's more efficient to cite one source for the whole family, than to find every document for the whole family. You'll get to them later.

Here's an example my fellow Italian genealogy researchers can relate to. I've gone back to my unfinished project of creating my missing source citations. (See "These Steps Make Your Family Tree Much More Valuable"). The majority of these citations are for Italian vital records. I've been skipping the citations because the documents are on my computer, and I can find them in a snap.

But I want my online family tree to be a resource for anyone with roots in the same ancestral hometowns as mine. So I have to find the documents online (on the Antenati website) to get the URL and image number to add to my citation.

The most time-consuming part of the process was locating pre-1809* birth and death records. You can only find these documents in the priceless matrimoni processetti. (See "The Italian Genealogy Goldmine: 'Wedding Packets'").

*Italian civil records may exist as early as 1805, but for all my Italian towns, the records begin in mid-1809. One exception is a town that didn't start civil record keeping until 1861.

The only problem is, there are a lot of pages in each year's processetti, and they can be in no particular order. Finding the page I need to cite can take a while. I needed a way to simplify this process.

Here's what I did to save all that search time. This works well for me because every person in the town is in my family tree. I'm going through each page of a given year's processetti one-by-one. For every pre-1809 birth or death, I check the person in my tree to see if I need the citation. If yes, I create it immediately. If no, I move on.

Working through this one resource, eliminating the tedious searches, saves a lot of time. And on top of that, I save more time by using the next concept.

2. Reduce Keystrokes

In 1985 I worked for a printing company. I generated templates on a computer, printed them on a plotter, and cut and folded them to look like the finished product—a direct mail piece. These templates were a guideline for creating the piece's text and artwork.

Words can be a template, too. I keep a handful of source citation templates handy so my citations are consistent. They also reduce the amount of typing you have to do. Anything that reduces keystrokes can save time and avoid errors.

Here are 3 source citation templates I keep handy. For each one, I add the right numbers and replace CAPITALIZED words to keep a consistent format.

1. For New York City Municipal Archives vital records: New York City Municipal Archives; NYC Department of Records & Information Services; YEAR BOROUGH TYPE certificate #xx; URL
2. For a resource of fallen soldiers from the Benevento province of Italy: From the Benevento State Archives, military records, fallen soldiers; register #xx, record #xx, class #xx; page URL, PDF URL
3. For any vital record from Antenati: From the PROVINCE State Archives, YEAR TYPE, TOWN, document xx, image xx of xx at bookURL; https://iiif-antenati.san.beniculturali.it/iiif/2/TARGET/full/full/0/default.jpg

3. Form a Production Line

Factories use production lines to save time, increase efficiency, and ensure quality. To get through so many searches for living relatives, I used a production line mentality.

I knew I had to search for several documents:

• ship manifests
• naturalization papers
• censuses
• draft registration cards
• vital records
• obituaries.

Keeping one person as my focus, I went through each stop on the production line. I searched for each document. I added the facts to my tree, made the source citation, and copied facts and citations as needed.

I kept my eye on the production line to produce a complete, accurate, quality product each time. But you can bet production line workers get bored, so on to concept 4.

4. Keep Yourself Happy

Boredom can keep you from getting the job done. If you get bored with one task, pick a logical stopping point, and jump to another task that suits your mood.

When I'm working through those big matrimoni processetti collections, it can get overwhelming. When I finish one year, I may dread starting the next year. Of course I always want to make progress, so what's the answer? Jump to another task.

After finishing one year's processetti, I went back to my list of people missing citations. (Find out how to generate your list in "These Steps Make Your Family Tree Much More Valuable"). Then I picked off people whose early birth records were already cited. All I had to do was track down their marriage and death records. That made me happy because the hard part was already done.

Reap the Benefits of Efficiency

If you're ever frustrated by your genealogy research, try adding these efficiency measures. Don't follow whims and bounce all around. It's inefficient! Focus on what you need to do to increase the value of your family tree. Always remember that your family tree is your legacy.

Pay attention to what you're doing and look for ways to save steps, reduce keystrokes, form a production line, and stay happy. Of course you're happy. You're doing genealogy! Best. Puzzle. Ever.

And speaking of efficiency:

• 4 Ways to Fit Genealogy into Your Busy Day
• This Genealogy Research Log Boosts Your Efficiency
• 4 Ways to Make Big Genealogy Progress When You Have Little Time