3 Questions to Make You a More Efficient Genealogist

A lifetime ago I worked for a company that printed complex direct mail pieces. You know. Junk mail. My job was to help train new printing press operators. With the help of two experienced pressmen, I created training videos and manuals.

What does this have to do with genealogy? I had to learn the printing process myself before I could document it for the training materials. You can do this with the family tree-building process to work smarter and get more done in less time.

There are 3 questions that can help improve your family tree-building efficiency.

Ever since I retired, genealogy has been my full-time job. (That's why I retired.) How fabulous it is to have a job you can't wait to start every day! And I'm crazy-efficient and productive because of the steps I've taken. Here's what makes me so prolific:

1. Professional workspace. My desk, in one corner of my house, has a computer connected to three monitors arranged side by side. On a normal day, I'll have:
   • Family Tree Maker open on monitor one
   • a spreadsheet, desktop search program, and text file on monitor two
   • a web browser and any images on monitor three.
2. Consistent file naming. I do everything digitally, so I don't have shelves full of color-coded binders. I can't even imagine working that way. Years ago, I adopted a file-naming process that makes every file easy to find.
3. Top-notch tools. Some of my computer software is subscription-based, but you can find free alternatives. I use:
   • Adobe Photoshop for images
   • Microsoft Excel for tons of data handling
   • Notepad++ (free) for text files
   • Everything (free from voidtools.com) to locate any file on my computer
   • Family Tree Maker to store my genealogy work, and I synchronize it with my Ancestry tree every day.

With more professional tools, you can be a more professional genealogist.

Set yourself up for success with the right tools and an efficient workspace. Then it's time to examine your family tree-building processes. Imagine you have a day to spend working on your family tree. What will you set out to do? Ask yourself these three questions:

1. What are my goals for the day?

You might want to find all the census records your tree is missing. You might decide to add people and facts to your cousin-in-law's branch because they asked you to. Or you may create a Book of Life to share with family on the 4th of July.

I have a few ongoing projects I can dive into each morning. I know exactly which programs and files to have open when I'm ready to start. I created a computer macro to launch them all with one command: Ctrl + 1.

Whatever you plan to do, think about what needs to be at your fingertips and get it there.

2. What steps will I take in the process?

You can break down most goals into steps. Say you need to use the vacuum cleaner. You have to:

• get out the vacuum cleaner
• put the proper attachment on it
• plug it into a convenient outlet
• begin vacuuming.

When you're done, you need to put everything back the way it was.

Now think about the genealogy process you want to do. Let's use my long-term project to add the missing source citations to my family tree as an example. Once I use my macro to open:

• my tree in Family Tree Maker
• the spreadsheet of everyone with no source citations (generated by Family Tree Analyzer)
• Everything
• the Windows calculator (for calculating year of birth)
• my web browser to the site I need (in my case, the Antenati portal for Italian vital records)
• the Notepad++ file with my source citation templates

…I'm ready to begin creating source citations. The steps in this process are:

• Choose a person from the spreadsheet. I like to stick to people from one town for greater efficiency. Lately I've been working through everyone with a particular last name.
• Find the person in Family Tree Maker to see which citations they need. They'll need some combination of birth, marriage, and death records.
• Click on their father and see if they have siblings who also need source citations.
• All the vital records for my ancestral hometowns are on my computer for easy searching. What I need to do is find the document on the Antenati portal so I can create the citation. I use Everything to locate all the siblings at once. Say their last name is Basilone and their father is Giovanni. I type "Basilone di Giovanni in Everything and they all show up. The file names include the document number I need to locate online.
• On the Antenati portal, I open each collection I need in a separate browser tab. If I need birth records for 1858, 1862, 1865, and 1868, I open those sets of records in different tabs.
• In each tab, I locate the document number I need and grab the details for my citation. I need to edit my citation template to show the right year, document number, image number, and URL.
• When the citation is complete, I add it to my Family Tree Maker file.
• Each time I complete all the citations for a person, I delete their name from the spreadsheet. This way I know the exact number of people left to complete.

I do this until I'm worn out for the day. Then I go through my end-of-day file backup routine.

Whichever task you're planning to work on, think through the steps or take note of them as you do your work.

Knowing the steps and their order helps the whole process become second-nature. Look for efficiencies along the way.

I like to locate the right document in each open browser tab. Then I create the citations one after another. It feels as if the process goes faster this way. I also like to click to highlight all the siblings in the Everything results screen. Then I can deselect each person when their citation is complete. This way I never forget to complete a person. That helps in a family of 12 children!

3. Which part of the process slows me down?

Efficiency is the key to getting more done in less time. Where can you be more efficient in your process?

• Tackling all the siblings in a family at once makes me more efficient. I'm moving around less in my family tree.
• Opening the record collections in separate tabs makes me more efficient. I get the process started in several places instead of one at a time.
• Having a source citation template in an open text file makes me more efficient. I keep separate templates for births, death, marriages, and marriage banns. Plus one more for what's called matrimoni processetti. This minimizes the amount of typing I have to do.

Whatever genealogy site you use, open the best search results in different tabs. Your original search results list will remain there, waiting for you to return.

Picture me, if you will, sitting before my three monitors in the corner of my great room for hours a day. My goal with the source citations project is to complete 100 people a day, removing them from my list. If there are lots of siblings, I can complete 130 people a day.

Pay attention to the steps you take to reach your goal, and see where you can worker smarter. Being more productive will keep you from feeling frustrated in your quest, too.