Lists - My Favorite Research List

Last week I did a series on feeling overwhelmed in your research.  In that series I talked about my research lists and promised to share how I do them in Legacy.  Warning this post is heavy in the images department so it might be slow to load if you are on a dial up connection.

First of all let me start by saying I don't like the report feature.  I've never liked it, not even when I used other software.  So I set out to find a way to get what I want in the easiest way possible.  That's when I figured out that I could make the "search" feature work for me.  I've used this for years, I love it and today I'm going to show you how I do it.

When you open Legacy you see the top of your screen which has your tool bar and the tabs across the top.  We aren't going to deal with the tabs.  Today's blog is about the tool bar.  You will want MY TOOLBAR highlighted.  Under that if you look to YOUR left of that you will see SEARCH.

Click on SEARCH and it will open the window you see below.  Its not a complicated window so you should be able to see there are THREE conditions available to search by.  You set the conditions based on what you are working on.  You may or may not need all three conditions.  Your choice.  When I am going to an archive to work I usually use all three.   You should take some time before you get into this to decide what you want to use this for and exactly what it is you are after.  This is my favorite for archive & locality work.  Helps me see where the holes are in that area. 

 Once you figure out where you want to research then you can focus on the people that are there. You do this by filling in the "conditions.  As you can see below there are three "conditions" available to use.   I use "individual" and then continue on with birth place, Marriage place, death place or whatever conditions you want.  After that you decide on where you are going to research.  For this example I chose Montgomery County, Ohio.  You type in what you want.  Make sure that you fill this in exactly as you have it in your program or you get no where.  It has to match.   Once you've made your choices you will see at the bottom CREATE LIST.  Click it.

 The program is going to take a few seconds/minutes depending on how many people in the area you have.  This Montgomery County list that I created has abt 280 pages.  My family (maternal) has been in Montgomery County since the very early 1800's.  When it has done its thing it will give you a screen much like the one below.  It has your list on the left.  On it is everyone who fit the "conditions" that you put in above.  A very nice little list indeed!  And so simple to get!

 One little thing that greatly affects the length of your list is shown below.  If you look directly below your list, you will see a small button, OPTIONS.  The pull down window will open.  Make sure that you unclick "include married names".  It gives you many duplicates that I personally find totally uncalled for.  To the right of that button is one that says print.  Click on it.

 When you click on that PRINT button the screen below comes up.  This is where you define how your report will be spaced.  I keep it pretty simple, spread it across one page, one row.  Very seldom do I see a need for two rows.  If you look under the OPTIONS tab on the screen below this text you can see the options for headers and the name you want on the report. 

 Down in the far right corner you see the REPORT settings.  I like using the PDF option as I can save it and have a copy just in case.  Once you decide if you want pdf or whatever, you go back to the top right and click CREATE.  You won't see the CREATE button unless you mark the pdf button.  Once you hit create it will ask you what to name your file and where you want it saved to. Your choice on that one.

 The list will appear on your screen and a box will pop up asking if you want to view your pdf. If you say yes, then something like this will appear!  My search list looks like this....  As you can see it gives me the persons name, id number, birth, death, spouse and marriage information.  With this I can walk into any Archive and I know exactly what I am in need of.  You can change those settings to reflect more or less information,  depending on what it is you are in need of.  As in any piece of software its only as good as you make it. 

 So now you have it. My favorite list to use when I'm researching at an Archive or library.  I've shown you how to do this in Legacy, but I'm sure that other pieces of software are capable of doing the same thing, it just take you a few tries to get it the way you want it.  Although this post seems long and the process difficult, I can generate & print one of these in under four minutes (yes, I timed it!).  Leaves me plenty of time to dress, grab my keys and be out the door and on my way to a great day of reseaching ANYWHERE very quickly.   Hope it works for you!

Karen

Overwhelmed? Make Lists!

Step #4 of my five steps to help ease the feeling of overwhelmed was Make Lists!  I'm a list maker.  Always have been and I'm sure I always will be.  Mr. Brown Eyes (my spouse) tells me that I have a ticker tape list running across my forehead the minute my feet hit the floor in the morning.

I'm not sure its quite that bad, but he is correct.  When I hit the shower in the morning I pretty much know what my day is going to be like.  I know what needs to be done, I know what I want to do and most of the time, baring any emergencies or such I pretty much get  'er done. 

As I said before alot of this boils down to priorities.  Its really pretty simple.  What is important to you and how badly do you want to take care of those things?

My first list of the day is what do I need to get done as far as our home goes?  Do I need to toss in laundry?  Take out something for dinner?  Put something in the crockpot?   Do the bird feeders need filling?   Are there any projects that I need to take care of?   I have a pretty standard routine that takes place for cleaning, it's primarily a Monday morning thing.  There's a list - Laundry gets started, dinner goes in the crockpot, dusting is done,  usually the house cleaning is complete on Monday's by noon.  There are several good sites with lists that can help with that.  One that is very popular is the FlyLady site.  She has lots of helpful ideas on getting your house in order & organized.  Another is the Martha Stewart website.  The link I provided links to her "lists", cleaning, organizing and more.  Worth taking a look at if you are challenged in that area. 

Once that is done then we look at genealogy.  I've always got one major project going on in my office.  I've currently got two major lists I'm working on.  One is my "Michigan Research" list and the other is my "Medina County Ohio Research" list.  Both of these are generated by my software.  Another list that I like to generate from my software are "database" search lists.  Not difficult to do, but oh so helpful.  I will be doing a follow up post on generating those lists shortly.   Those lists show me where my "holes" are and what I need to be looking for.  We all have those holes in our research. 

I also keep to do lists for ALL my favorite genie haunts.  Those include Library of Michigan, Allen County (Ft Wayne), Indiana,  Montgomery County Record Center & Archives (Dayton, Ohio), Medina County, Ohio public Library.   Each repository that I have plans to visit has a to do list - some are obit search lists, some are vital record wants, some are major lists with books, microfilms and more on them.  The lists include call numbers, newspaper names and details of what I want and why.  Easily customized for all needs.  I keep those in Evernote.  Always accessible and available for spur of the minute "honey want to run off & research weekends?".   Prepared?  You better believe it!

Lists are just so important.  Both in our genealogy and our personal lives.  I've got my Christmas lists going already. Not what I want, but what do I have for each of my grandsons and kids.  Can't really go into detail here because I do know my kids read this.  I've got a little notebook sorta thingy that has a space for each person I shop for.  I have written down the "gee, I could use that" stuff that I hear during the year, then as I find it it gets taken of that list and gets added to the BOUGHT list.  So far no one has ever found that list.  Comes in handy when you go out shopping and come back as to what goes to what grandson.  I use my iPad for my grocery lists.  Its great, it shows up on all devices so there's never a chance I don't have my list with me. 

I try really hard not to make lots of paper lists but sometimes hard as I try I end up with post its on my desk for genealogy stuff I want to remember,  for reminders, for blog topics that I want to write about (I've got one going right here next to my laptop now). 

In short,  you need to find a way to make lists that work for you.  If its paper, if its electronic that works too.  The main thing is that using lists helps keep you focused.  Keeps you on track.  I'm a visual person.  Seeing it in front of me, whether on paper or on the iPad or in Evernote keeps me on track.  With my list I can see my goals and where I stand.  If I have a list of 12 things to do and my goal is done by noon, there's still four to go and its 11:15- I better get off the phone and finish that list.  Yep, keeps me on track. 

Are you a list maker?  If not, maybe you should try it!  Sure helps me! 

Overwhelmed? Here's Five Steps To Help!

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of genealogy information being "thrown" at you these days?  A sense of being totally overwhelmed by the "information highway"?   It seems like everyday there is some new technology, something new to search, something new to try, a new website, a new genealogy Facebook page,  you want to look at them all but you've got kids to take care of, the laundry calls, someone has to make dinner and the list seems to just keep growing on both the personal and the genealogy sides?

I know how you feel!  It can be tough.  But I've learned some things so I thought I'd share them with you.  This is how I survive, can't swear it will work for you but some suggestions that might help.

• Priorities  -  Sit down, step back and take a hard look at just what it is that is truly important to you.  Yes, I know you really want to find out who the parents of John Smith are.  We all do.  But the fact is, he's been dead for over 200 years.  He can wait.  Stop and take a good look at what really matters.  Then plan your time around those things.
• Organize -  You would be amazed at how much easier life is when you organize your life.  Not just your genealogy but your day to day life as well.  I didn't say it was easy or that it would happen over night, but it can be done.  By having things organized, you can quickly get things done without spending half the time you wanted to use researching or doing household chores looking for things to help get the job done.  Make a place for everything and put everything in its place. 
• Simplify - Again it really makes like easier if you learn to simplify things.  I enjoy cooking and baking as one of my "other" hobbies.  I sometimes see really great recipes with tons of ingredients and steps to making them.  Reading over the process I usually find a way to side step alot of the process and still get the same results.  There are alot of things that you can do to simplify things.  In genealogy, when doing some internet searches I search using ONE group sheet. Yep, just one family and search only for that family. No rabbit hole running.
• Make Lists  -  Not just in your genealogy but in your daily life.  Sit down and make a list of the chores that you need to take care of.  Sometimes by multitasking & dividing you can shorten the time it takes to get the job done.  By making a list you can see what chores are the most time consuming and perhaps do one per day, combined with several smaller chores each day.  Everything gets done and you win with more time for doing the things you want to do instead of what you have to do. 
• Learn to say NO -  Being a stay at home mom for all of our marriage meant that I was one of those who got asked to do EVERYTHING.  You know,  you are at home watching soaps and eating bon bons so of course you have time to be on every committee and do everything right?  I learned early on that if I accepted everything that I was asked to do I quickly had no time to do the things I needed/wanted to do at home.  So I stepped back, decided which things were the most important for me to do at school to support the activities I felt important and then adjusted my time to fit that in.  Everything else was "Sorry, I'd love to help but I'm already volunteering on several other projects."  

In the long run, it really boils down to one thing.  PRIORITIES.  What really matters to you?   We all love our genealogy.  It's addictive, it's challenging and I could go on and on.  But the fact of the matter is very few of us are "Islands".  We have people we live with, people who depend on us for other things.  And as much as we'd love to research 24/7 it really isn't possible.  At least not for me.  So take a few minutes, step back and take good hard look at your life.  Decide what things matter and then take it from there!  You'll be much happier and so will those around you!  
          

Lists, Lists & More Lists

Are you a list maker?  I am! I have to do lists for everything.  Shopping, future projects, places I need to go, things I need to do.  Being a genealogist it seems I'm always working on a list of some sort.

This week I've been working on my lists for upcoming trips.  We're not doing trips around the world or anything but you must admit that being prepared aka having a good list is the foundation for a successful research trip. 

Tomorrow we are headed out to Miamisburg, Ohio to do some research on my Gebhart & Early families that lived in that area.  So I've got an extensive list of people who need obits.  While I am pulling newspapers to search & copy, Mark will be going thru the books looking for mention of them there. 

Other lists that are in progress include one for next Tuesday's trip to Fort Wayne and then for our vacation trip I'm working on lists for Pennsylvania (Dauphin, Berks, Lancaster & Schuylkill Counties) and the North Carolina State library & the Archives there as well.  Also hoping to do some work in West Virginia and Ohio along the way. 

Fortunately I don't need them all today.  Most are an ongoing thing in my genealogy software, Legacy.  When I do an obit list I take them out of the software and put them on an excel spreadsheet so they are in chronological order, making two copies, one for me and one for the librarian or Mark, depending on who is pulling the films for me.  Otherwise I use them straight from Legacy.  I print them, bind them in one of my research notebooks and then we are good to go! You can check out the research notebook & obit list by clicking on the link and scrolling down.  Both are there within a few days of each other.

Lists for research trips - they're a good thing!  How do you arrange your lists for your trips?  Do you use them the way your software presents them or customize them for yourself?  I'd like to hear how you do your lists.