Monday, February 23, 2015

GENEALOGY DO-OVER, Week 8 - How is it going?



Week 8 in the Genealogy Do-Over, and given the challenges I had with my eye surgery and post-surgery recovery time, I'm doing very well indeed!!

Week 8 focuses on two important research tools:
1.  Conducting Collateral Research, and
2.  Researching Offline Education Opportunities.

Tick!  Yes, I have researched collateral relatives family details as much as I have been able to find, for over 10 years.  Sometimes that has been the only way I found where a family originated from, or gained an understanding of the occupations of the family members.  Frequently looking through collateral relatives has helped me decide if a particular family group IS or IS NOT my ancestors - names, occupations, religions, neighbours - these details and more are so helpful. I keep details on my full family tree, and considered them "family" just as much as the direct ancestors.

In general I go up a few generations, and down several generations as well.  For my various Grover Buel(l) ancestors, I had to use collateral relatives' details in order to make sense of the line. And then I followed down the collateral relatives to see if any others kept up using the surname Grover as a forename.  The collateral relatives' research was  necessary also as I struggled to dig through the tangled lives of the several Archibald "Archer" Walters men, their parents and their children.   So this 'new' learning was actually old-hat for me, and all I'm doing is making certain that I have indeed done the research, and clarified the in-laws and out-laws!

Oh Dear:  The second point about researching offline education opportunities - this is significantly more difficult for me.  Retired on no pension, living with my youngest son who is unable to work competitively, means I have such a squeaky budget that my so-called disposable income is tiny.  I have to figure out where to spend it, and sometimes I decide to spend it on a haircut, or on tickets to Bard on the Beach in the summertime in Vancouver.  These are choices, of course, and I could choose to pinch even tighter to see if I could pull enough dollars together for a conference out of province.  Don't hold your breath!  I love conferences, but this is unlikely.

I have my BC Genealogy Society I belong to, attending meetings as well as some of the special events we put on.  The LDS Tri-Stake one-day Conference held here in the Lower Mainland (Surrey, BC) in October is one I attend almost every year.

But I have my list of want-to-attend conferences, with these two at the top of the list:  RootsTech, Jamboree (SCGS).  And wouldn't it be a treat to go to England for their huge Who Do You Think You Are conference?  Then again, there's the pull of visiting Northern Ireland... I would love to travel to my great-grandparents' village of Augher in County Tyrone, to see if I could find "something" about the Armstrong and Gillespie families there.

One day...  In the meantime, doing my second year of #52Ancestors posts on my blog, Twigs and Trees, gives me a weekly opportunity to research one ancestor at a time and save documents, maps, books, photos, "properly" - labelled correctly in a standardized way, as well as use my new habit of adding to my Research Log(s), To Do lists, Document Sources to cite.  I can't believe how easy it is becoming to do this in a methodical organized fashion.  Every time.

Amazing.  Thanks to all the helpful genealogy people on the Genealogy Do-Over Facebook group for their great templates, suggestions, helpful hints and examples. You're a great community.

And a huge THANK YOU to Thomas MacEntee for proposing such a crazy idea of actually "doing over" our genealogy tree and research work. Definitely crazy - definitely worth doing, and not as difficult as I thought it would be!

3 comments:

GeniAus said...

You are a real trooper Celia. I admire your persistence in sticking with the do-over and doing it so successfully.

Laura Aanenson said...

Admirable organization and methodology. I'm impressed!

Barbara Poole said...

I love your attitude!

Welcome!

Family, friends, and others - I hope you enjoy these pages about our ancestors and their lives. Genealogy has become somewhat of an obsession, more than a hobby, and definitely a wonderful mystery to dig into and discover. Enjoy my writing, and contact me at celia.winky at gmail dot com if you have anything to add to the stories. ... Celia Lewis