Sunday, January 11, 2015

Grandma's Big Box Of Stuff: Setting Research Goals: Genealogy Do-Over

This week we are asked to set research goals.

As my Do-Over is a complete redo of my maternal lineage, this is fantastic! I inherited a big box of all my maternal grandmother's hand written research dating from the 1940's to the 1980's, when she passed away. Her handwriting is terribly hard to read so I have been putting off this task, for years! But it is the place I need to start. It has so overwhelmed me that I have ignored it, until now.

The only person who can really make sense of it is my mother. Brilliant! Why? Because we are also asked to conduct family interviews. What better way to "kill two birds" as it were, then asking my mom to read the research to me while I interview her!

This will most likely not happen this week as she lives a good distance from me and would require a long car trip to visit.

ETPT - Genealogy Queen
But I do plan on going through all the papers and making two files. One I can read, one I can't (that's where mom comes in). The research goal I am setting this week for the Do-Over, is to thoroughly document, enter, or otherwise read every shred of my grandmother's research to set a solid foundation on which to build.

My grandmother was a lot like I am. She had the entire family in her head. She could rattle off facts and knew who married whom, when, where, etc. BUT it is all written by hand or badly typed and stored in paper folders, aging very ungracefully. There is correspondence to cousins, a collection of obituaries, letters to counties and states, newspaper clippings, more. She had made a 5 gen pedigree, but her research goes back so much farther. I am grateful that she made such thorough notes. My goal is to get it all together and recorded digitally.

She would have loved this new digital age of genealogy! I know she is with me in spirit.


1 comment:

  1. What a treasure trove of information! With a name like Jones I would love to have that. All dad's siblings gone except for one sister and I can't seem to get anything out of her. But with this do-over I will certainly try again!

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