A bit of a general genealogical research guide slash update

This past weekend was a strange mixture of wearing out and recuperating. We went to Navy Pier on Saturday with a bunch of Colin's coworkers who are here on 3 month work visas from India. I thought it might be somewhat fun given that I've never actually gone there before. People gazing and limited boat watching was about all that I found fun. Oh, and sitting inside the convention center on the floor in some little corner or sitting in the greenhouse. The crowds were massive, it was hot, and everything was ridiculously expensive or not something I really wanted to do. End result: crankiness despite valiant efforts. The evening proved more enjoyable, as Shaheli cooked for us at her apartment. Earlier, the apartment had weird power outage issues but they were gone by dinnertime. Some of us had some wine and all of us had laughter. The train north only leaves every two hours on the weekends so we took one that should have gotten us home about midnight but some train problems caused an hour's delay. We spent it sitting on the train where it got increasingly over-air conditioned.

Yesterday it was too hot to do anything but Colin and I had a good day in relaxing. Got some reading and genealogical research done, and Colin did a lot of dreaming up mini-computer projects. Example: being able to access thermostat via internet. Example: being able to print without being physically connected to printer. There's a lot of ideas ... and the technical details are slightly out of my depth. I think it's a great idea but it needs more thinking and planning and a designated workspace. I do feel kind of bad that it seems like a lot of the house is more my space, even though that could be justified by two facts: 1) I am here a lot more. 2) Most of his stuff is storage boxes.

Today I've been playing with our new multi functional printer. I'm very happy with it. Both the scanning and printing abilities work well with my linux machine. It takes a couple extra steps to set them up than most Brother printers; most drivers are available immediately through the CUPS system but not for the DCP-7040 (ours), so they need to be downloaded and installed directly from the Brother website. I haven't printed much but I've been going all out with the scanner, creating pdfs of genealogical research paper stuff. It's soooo much easier to use a automatic feeder than a flatbed!

The past week or so I've been focusing on the family branch we have the least amount of information for: my mother's father's side. Well, it may not be the most paltry branch based on how far it goes back - that would be my father's father's side - but it has had the least amount of research time devoted to and/or successful results for it by me and the relatives I'm aware of. It's kind of deceptive; they all go back to mid-1800s in Michigan and then *poof* a wealth of conflicting leads - New York or Canada? Massachusetts or New York? Scotland or Ireland? Was it the person we know the name of that immigrated, or is it just that supposedly the family at sometime is said to have originated from wherever? It also doesn't help that the surnames are very common British ones.

I've decided to attempt a new way of organizing research findings. I'll obtain primary information, preferably a pdf of the original document. Then, I chose to use the lineage approach, in this case working from the earliest known ancestor of that branch downward - this helps eliminate guesswork where to put whose information while still keeping each group narrow enough for comprehension - also very conducive to extending family trees horizontally. For each lineage that I've been actively working on, I have a text document ordered by dates. For instance, let's say there's a birth registry showing that Ann Thorgun was born in Decatur, Iowa on November 23, 1834 (if there really was, it's pure coincide). I'll obtain the primary information as is in a separate text document (Thorguns in Iowa) or pdf (Ann Thorgun 1834 birth). Next, I'll type into the lineage document:

1834
Ann Thorgun is born 23 November 1834 in Decatur, Iowa.

This allows for extra information to be included (such as how her parents' names are spelled in the registry) and for any researcher notes. If there is any other events that occur for the Thorgun lineage in 1834, it will be found immediately under Ann's birth information. However, I don't follow timeline organization past year - I put information about the most direct relative before, say, their brother's.

I'm not sure if I'll do this for all of my family, but it works well for trying to determine what happened when and where, with  a focus for migrations. I can easily see when a date doesn't make sense, or when one generation moves to another place while the previous one remains behind.

On top of that, I'm finally adding info to geni.com, which is like facebook for genealogy, but much more secure. Hopefully this will allow relatives to enjoy what I've put together and for certain ones to add their own info.  I've already noticed how much it helps to gain a mental grasp on what I've got and what next research step would feel the most fulfilling.

As for what else I'll do today ... probably make myself take a break, water the plants again, and read some more "Pride and Prejudice." But mostly, I see no need to vary from genealogical research, since I have managed two loads of laundry as my housekeeping for the day ;)