PhD in Genealogy

Sharon, Vermont, 2010
This is one of the most beautiful, peaceful
places we have ever been.

I am using this photo on this post because it is the birth place of the first Prophet of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Joseph inspired much of the work that we as Latter-day Saints do as genealogists today. I can remember the peace I felt here very vividly on this little road. I hope there are some ideas here to help you have a peaceful journey in doing your own family history.

I started to work on collecting and recording our genealogy about 33 years ago. Our church asked us to compile a four-generation Pedigree Chart with accompanying Family Group Sheets on ourselves, our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. These would all then be sent to Salt Lake City to become a part of an Ancestral File Collection, housed there in the Family History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

When you begin your genealogy you will see these two forms below almost immediately. They never go away. And they multiply faster than bunny rabbits, if you are lucky! If you want a PhD in Genealogy, just fill in the blanks and then set it down on a table or desk some place thinking...

I'll figure out what to do with that later!

That is all there is to getting that PhD. It stands for Piles that get Higher and Deeper. I have earned this prestigious degree! You may call me Doctor if you want to, but you don't have to!

In all fairness to myself let me explain. In the words of Hillel a rabbi and scholar from many years ago, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I?, And if not now, when?" So in the spirit of that thought, I want to spare you the grief of getting buried alive in your papers.

Back in the day, I would willingly go off to the Oakland Genealogical Library and work on my family's lineage. Faith precedes the miracle it has been said! I was being obedient to the request of our prophet. We were new in the church at that time, and never considered a request from our prophet as optional. We still don't because we love and trust them to never lead us astray.

I took my trusty yellow legal pad, a pen, and green file box with some manilla file folders inside that I could tote around. I had collected some information from my parents and Jim's parents and grandparents and off I went.

Since I was starting with myself I did pretty well there. I knew my name, birth date, place of birth, who I married and when and where and that I was still alive. I knew everything there was to know about our three children. Easy! I knew we had the birth certificates and marriage certificate somewhere at home, so I was all set. Generation 1 nearly done! Piece of cake!

Big hint: When you get to this point stop and think, how am I going to keep track of my papers documents, photos, heirlooms and the like?

When I use to do home decorating professionally, I went into many houses to do consultations. Let me just say this...If you are person that stacks your mail up for a week before opening it, you have lots of newspapers laying around, old magazines, etc. then I'll assume lots of paper does not seem to bother you.

However, it will when it is your genealogy and you are looking for something and cannot lay your hands on it. I had clients that had a problem with this and I would have them open and sort and file and throw away junk mail everyday. When your house is on the market you cannot have piles of anything sitting around. So they would practice before the house listed. What they learned...It is not hard, one day at a time, but waiting until it is choking your existence; that when it gets really difficult.

This is especially true with genealogy and organizing your work, research and findings. This little exercise of dealing with your paper daily may help you if you are comfortable and relaxed about papers everywhere in your house. Sometimes we get so use to the way we do things that we do not even 'see' we are being buried in papers. Many of my clients did not know this was an issue in selling your home. So it may be with some budding genealogists. Trust me here, it is an issue for genealogists.

So getting back to my story, I made a file that had my husband's name on the little, white label and then I put everything pertaining to our little family in that file. Then I put in files for our parents and whomever else we already knew we had descended from directly. There were a lot of blank file labels for a long time. But that little file tote served my purposes for a long time. I could lay my hands on anything I needed just by keeping current on my filing.

Hint #2. You have to find a system that works for you and that you understand. The most important thing is to find something that you can try right away. Trying to go back and do it later is not a good idea, in spite of the fact than many of us are having to do just that.

So how did I get into the PhD program in genealogy you're wondering? Simply put, genealogy kept getting better while I was busy with raising a family, working, developing a business, writing and the like! We got computers and software programs. We got the Internet where websites for genealogical research started to crop up all over the place. Lots of records were digitized and more and more are being added too various databases everyday by the thousands.

During a good part of that time, I was not actively doing my genealogy. So now that I have been back at it for 10 months, I realize how things are moving so much faster. Just our printing capabilities now have increased the paper flow exponentially on every level. When I opened my dusty, old box it still had carbon paper in it! I have easily collected a large binder crammed full of papers in the last 10 months that are not properly filed yet. I have gone through several note books just writing notes on the various things that I was learning and didn't want to forget. These are also not filed properly yet. I have found as I am learning how to actually find what I am looking for more effectively, I have more copies of things like census records I need to deal with.

Also I have attended some great seminars and a conference and classes, all of which I have notes for that need to be analyzed and filed where I can access them. Best of all, networking is much easier now. We have met a great person working in an area where we are working and he has sent us many, many groups sheets and pedigree charts, Individual Summaries of source materials and other things from his research on common ancestors.

See what I mean about the bunny rabbits? The paper keeps coming at a phenomenal rate. The technology, the wonderful people willing to give all to help you, fantastic resources available to us...all these things contributed to my PhD. I am thrilled with all of it, I just need to get on top of it!

So I have been struggling with this and how to do it and have gotten some opinions on what works best for other people. I am ploughing through it now and it is hard. I want to spare you that by having you get organized from the get go. In this era of computers, Internet and the rest of it, you need to have a plan. You have to work out a time to put away what you find in a safe place. I don't want you to get a PhD in Genealogy, you go get one in something else. OK?