Tag Archives: citations

Spring Cleaning: George Long Digital Folder

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Genealogy is a work in progress. You know that, right? It is never finished, can always be refined, one more thing can be researched, and so on…forever.

I did make a little progress in organizing my George Long binder. But as I was doing that, I discovered that I really needed to work on his digital folder so that it would match up with the binder, and then I could work on both at the same time as I work through documents.

My document process is (not necessarily in this direct order, but all of these things are done with each document):

  1. Look at the document. Decide to whom it belongs.
  2. Make sure the document is scanned if it wasn’t already digital.
  3. Affix a citation to the image. If it is already printed I sometimes make a label to stick to the printed document. If it is possible, I use my word processor (Mac Pages) or Snag-It to digitally affix a citation to the image. I then reprint if necessary. But by whatever means, I get a citation on that document.
  4. I make sure the citation is in my master footnotes list. (See “Touch it Once Citations“)
  5. Put the digital item in the correct folder.
  6. In my genealogy software (Reunion) I input the data if it hasn’t been already. I link the digital image to the source in the software.
  7. I put the document in a plastic sleeve and put it in the correct location in my physical binder.

As I was working on George Long, I kept getting hung up when I needed to put the document in the digital folder. So, I took the time to get George’s folders titled and organized properly.

My Long Family Digital Folders

The digital filing is not complete, by any stretch. You can see some “Brandeberry” files that I need to put in the correct location. This was a second marriage for daughter Martha and I just need to decide how I create second marriage folders. Right now, I can think of two solutions. One, create a sub-folder within the folder titled “LONG (ch8) Martha & Jacob Hentges” that is titled “LONG Martha & BRANDEBERRY – second marriage.” Or two, create a folder “LONG (ch8) MARTHA & John Brandeberry” and leave it in the same level of folder. What I don’t recall and will need to investigate is did that second marriage produce any children? Are there any documents I need to store for John Brandeberry? If I don’t have much of anything or if they had no children, I may not make a digital folder. I may just put the documents in the Jacob Hentges folder. (I would still enter the data for this second marriage in my genealogy software, of course.)

These the kinds of decisions you have to make when you are getting your files organized. How do I do it? You have to decide what is going to work for you and stick to it. I will get back to organizing the paper files now that I have this organization system ready to go. I learned that I can’t think of it as two separate projects/systems. They really are each part of the larger system.

Any plans for 2021?

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2020 is in the rearview window. But what does 2021 look like? For me, it is still too full of unknowns. So I am only planning what I can reasonably expect to do from home until more is known and settled.

In the meantime, we’ve made the move back to Colorado and are in the process of buying a new home….so we will be moving again. But for the last time for a long time I hope.

I have some speaking plans for 2021, all virtual at this point. Click here to go to my speaking calendar.

The biggest project I have on my plate is teaching a newly revised and restructured course at GRIP this summer on the Great Lakes Region. I will also be teaching in Paula Stuart Warren’s course as well. All of the information on GRIP courses can be found on the GRIP website.

If you have “tackle writing citations” on your genealogical resolutions list, you might consider taking my study group based on Tom Jones’s book Mastering Genealogical Documentation. This is a seven-week study group that goes through the book together and discusses some of the exercises in the book. We have two sessions, daytime with Cyndi Ingle (of Cyndi’s List) or evening with me. More information on that course can be found here. Or click on “Services” at the top of this page, then “Classes and Study Groups” and then after browsing all of the study groups we are offering, find Mastering Genealogical Documentation toward the bottom of that page.

I hope we all find 2021 a better year!

Getting Organized: Processing Documents

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IMG_3897
My desk still looks like this!

In this series, I’ve demonstrated all aspects of my genealogical organization system, my binders, my digital organization, handling citations, and other aspects of my system. This post will talk about the overall process or steps that I make sure I follow when I find a new document. Whether it is a document you download, a screenshot, a paper copy that I end up scanning, I make sure it undergoes the following steps (they don’t have to be done in a particular order):

  1. Find a document.
  2. Write the citation. I write it first in my master list of citations.
  3. Paste the citation into your genealogy software of choice and attach the image.
  4. Paste the citation onto the image either by using an image editor or by putting it into a word processor and adding a text box.
  5. Name the digital file in a way that allows your file to organize chronologically (or whichever system you prefer).
  6. Print the document and put it in the binder in the appropriate location.

I try to do this as I go, though to be honest, when I’m working quickly during a research session, I often make a folder titled “to do.” Then I dump the many documents into that folder to process later. When I do that, at the very least, I do write the citation while I have the needed information in front of me, then I do the rest of the process at a later time. Sometimes these folders get quite full. When that happens, I schedule a time to focus on nothing but getting caught up.

I want to stress that even though I’ve shared my system, it is up to you to find a system that works for you. The system that works for you is the one that makes sense to your choice of software, one that you can follow, one that makes sense to YOU and how you work.

Best of luck to you with your organizing quests!

Getting Organized: Citations

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In my last post, I discussed briefly “separation safeguards” as described in genealogy Standard 8, which states that “genealogists prevent mechanical or digital separation of citations from the” materials, whether it be in the form of footnotes or citations on the front of a photocopied document.1 I have settled on two methods of safeguarding my documents and records from citation separation.

One method is to put the image into a word processing document and adding a text box at the top or bottom that includes your citation.

CitationOnPage

I use Mac Pages, but the system is the same for Word or your preferred software. Simply copy/paste or insert the image into the document, and add text wherever you wish. I usually put the citation below the image as shown above.

Sometimes I get an image that for some reason seems easier to annotate directly on the image rather than inserting it into a word processing document. Typically I find I do this when I have PDF or .jpg files with larger images. I will open the image in my image viewer which in my case is Mac Preview, but this can be done in Adobe Reader with PDF files. From there, you can add a text box over the image to add the citation. Of course, you will want to put the citation in a space that doesn’t change the meaning of the document.

Citation Annotation

This can be done using your image viewer of choice, including Photoshop or Adobe Reader. There are no right or wrong answers here with regards to the process. The only wrong way to do it is to not do anything at all to guard against citation separation.

When it comes to crafting citations, I employ the “Touch It Once” method. I described it in detail in this earlier post, and I highly recommend forming a system for yourself of writing your citations once so that when it comes time to write an article or report to a family member, they are already created and ready for use. This step is all part of my overall process.

Next time I will be discussing my overall process that I use to go from found document to binder. You will need to come up with your own process to stay organized, or you will eventually find a lot of piles on your desk or in your computer of documents you need to organize, and basically back where we started. Don’t get behind again! Tips next time…

1. See standard number 8, “Separation Safeguards” in Board for Certification of Genealogists, Genealogy Standards, 2nd ed. (Nashville: Ancestry.com, 2019).↩

Writing Tip: “Touch it Once” Citations

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Genealogical writing can be daunting. There are a lot of moving pieces you have to keep in mind each step of the way. This post is going to address just one of those moving parts: CITATIONS.

Do you find citations time consuming? You may find that they stop you from making much progress, or that you just don’t write at all because they are intimidating and/or confusing. This is a tip for applying the “touch it once” principle to citations.1 If you follow the “touch it once” principle, citations can take up much less of your time.

The “touch it once” principle is a time-saving technique established by efficiency experts generally pertaining to the tasks that enter your life on a daily basis. Take an email for example. Typically, we go through our email and if one is particularly hard or time-consuming, we think “I’ll get to that later.” Then one of two things usually happens. It gets lost down your list of emails never to be seen again, or you come back to it later, read it for the second time and again say to yourself, “I’ll get to it later.” It’s the re-reading and redoing that wastes a lot of time.

Let’s look at this from a citation angle. As genealogists, there are a couple of different types. There’s the one who doesn’t do citations at all, or captures a vague title or URL. There’s the one who collects all of the information that may be needed for a citation and determines to “work on it later.” And there’s the one who crafts the citation, every semicolon, waypoint, and accessed date, right then and there.

I’m not perfect. But I’m here to tell you that as I’ve done this genealogy-thing over the years, I’ve learned from my mistakes. I’ve learned from having to redo things more than twice, and I’ve gotten into the habit of being that last person. I would guess that about 85% of the time, I craft the full citation right then and there. The other 15%, I collect what I think I’ll need and I’ll “work on it later.”

But my “touch it once” tip has one more step. Where do you store that citation once you’ve made it? That is up to you, but I encourage you to store it in a place that is easy to find, easily accessible (stored in the cloud perhaps), and in a system that makes sense to you.

My system utilizes a spreadsheet. I have each crafted citation in its own cell. Over the years, I have accumulated so many citations that I have developed a tagging system. I also capture the surnames involved and a geographic location.

masterfootnotes

As you can see from the screenshot, not every citation is in full EE style.2 This is because some of these I created back when I was a “baby genealogist.” But you can also see some symbols (***) that indicate to me that I’ve checked it against EE and it is more or less up to standard. There are names and initials in purple font in front of each citation. I use that for sorting purposes. Some citation formats don’t begin with something useful for sorting for these purposes and so I came up with this system. I also added the columns for location and surnames. The spreadsheet can be sorted by any column. You can utilize the “find” function to search for a particular word.

As we all know, the “way” we do things change over time. A lot of this has to do with new technology, digitization vs. film, for example. When I began, waypoints were not a thing. Now I find they are quite useful in certain types of citations. Many of these citations will need to be reworked a little bit as things in our industry change. But for the most part, I have a “touch it once” system. Now, when I’m writing an article, entering information into my database, writing a blog post, or anything where I need the citation, all I have to do is cut and paste. No more recreating the citation.

Another thing I do that helps me with citations comes from Standard #8, “Separation Safeguards,” in Genealogy Standards.3 I make sure that somewhere on the face of a document (whether or not I intend to print it), I also affix in a text box, the citation for that source. You can do this by putting the image in a word processor or by annotating images with software like Acrobat, Mac Preview, or Photoshop Elements. Then, if there is some breakdown in my system, at least there is a copy of that citation on that record image.

Like I said, this is a system that works for me. But it also has evolved over time and I go fix some of those old citation styles as I need to. The biggest message here is to not let citations stand in the way of your genealogical writing.

1. “The basic idea behind “touch it once” is that whenever you get an incoming task in front of you, you decide right away what to do with it.” From Zachary Sexton, “The ‘Touch it Once” Principle That Will Skyrocket Your Personal Efficiency,” AsianEfficiency (http://www.asianefficiency.com/mindsets/touch-it-once-productivity-principle/ : viewed 15 January 2019). ↩

2. Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Evidence Explained. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2017. ↩

3. Board for Certification of Genealogists. Genealogy Standards. Nashville: Ancestry, 2014. ↩

BCG Putting Skills to Work 2018

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I’ve been in Grand Rapids, Michigan since Tuesday when I attended the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) Education Fund’s “Putting Skills to Work” class. What an excellent day! The time was split between two classes.

Connie Lenzen’s class “Planning and Executing Reasonably Exhaustive Research: Or How to Ensure a Successful Hunt” discussed research questions and plans. I have to say that I was quickly reminded of what I should be doing everyday. I get so excited for the research that I forget to focus, slow down, and set forth a path for my search.

Tom Jones made us think about “Citing All Kinds of Online Sources.” This class focused only on sources you find online and really made us look at all of the layers that an online source might have. The original source, the microfilmed version, the scan of the microfilm, an original digitization in color, previously published or not, and so on. We worked through many example citations as a class and discussed each of the parts.

The level of interactive instruction that one gets at a BCG “Putting Skills to Work” class is incredible. If you are interested in certification, are already on the clock, or are already certified, it doesn’t matter. These classes are wonderful examples of hands-on, lecture with discussion with exercises, types of classes many of us enjoy and will benefit for our own continuing education.

The BCG Education Fund’s “Putting Skills to Work” occurs on the Tuesday before the National Genealogical Society Conference every year, so you will want to adjust your schedule accordingly. Next year’s schedule was announced at this years’ class, and will take place in St. Charles, Missouri on Tuesday May 7, 2019:

  • “Meeting Standards with Twenty-First Century Research Reports” with Melissa Johnson, CG
  • “Evidence Analysis: Theory, Practice, and the Real World” with Nancy A. Peters, CG, CGL

For more information on the BCG Education Fund, visit bcgedfund.org.