"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
When
you start searching
for information about your ancestors,
you quickly realize that relying on one record alone is risky. One
record rarely tells the whole story; in fact, one record alone can be
badly misleading.
Here’s
an example. Perhaps because of her unusual name, Philenda Sawyer was
enumerated in one census as a male. But every other record shows her
correct gender, including other census records and two marriage
records. However, someone apparently relied on just this one record
to enter the family’s information in Family Tree, and Philenda
was incorrectly entered as a male.
Here’s
another example, one of my favorites. A woman who married into my
family line tended to report herself as aging less than 10 years
between censuses that were taken 10 years apart. Finally, when she
died in her 50s, her age at death was given as 39. (I totally get
that.)
But
when we realize it’s risky to rely on just one record and we
start looking for multiple records, we run into a different problem.
With the vast online resources available today, we’re likely to
find a flood of information — more than we can easily retain in
our minds.
“Wait
— how old was John Bescoby in the 1851 census?” Or, “I
thought the 1871 census had a different birthplace for Mary
Stuffins.” How do you keep it all straight?
The
solution is to use some kind of tracking tool (also called “research
log”). There is a variety from which to choose. They may be
detailed or simple, paper or electronic. All have one goal in common,
though — helping you capture and organize the information you
find about your ancestors.
My
personal favorite is a tracking tool called the timeline grid. The
timeline grid is a simple table you create in a word processor or
spreadsheet program. It centers on one nuclear family (i.e., a
father, mother, and their children). It’s most useful for
countries and time periods with regular censuses. Every census gets a
column, and every person gets a row.
Using
the timeline grid has changed the way I do family history. It’s
made research easier and more fun. I’m more organized, and I
don’t find myself unintentionally repeating work I’ve
already done.
Here
are some other advantages of the timeline grid:
It’s
flexible: I can adapt it to the needs of individual families or
research projects.
It’s
compact — it shows a lot of data in a meaningful way in a
small space. I can easily see what I’ve found and what I’m
still looking for.
It
provides a snapshot of a family through time.
It
makes patterns more obvious (for instance, a woman not aging a full
ten years between censuses).
It
makes conflicting data easier to see so it can be resolved.
The
timeline grid is easy for someone else to read and make sense of,
even if they didn’t do the original research.
If
you keep your timeline grids in a cloud service like Google
Drive or Dropbox
you can access them wherever there’s an Internet connection.
In addition, you can easily share them with other researchers.
The
timeline grid is a useful guide when adding names to Family Tree and
clearing them for temple work.
Will
the timeline grid work for you? That’s for you to decide. But
one thing is certain: you’ll avoid a lot of wasted time and
headaches if you find and use a tracking tool that works for you.
Kathryn Grant is a user assistance professional with a passion
for usability and process
improvement. She also loves family history and enjoys the challenge and
reward of building her family tree.
As a child, she lived outside the United States for four years because of her father's job. This experience fueled her natural love of words and language, and also taught her to appreciate other cultures.
Kathryn values gratitude, teaching, learning, differences, and unity. She loves looking at star-filled skies, reading mind-stretching books, listening to contemporary Christian music, attending the temple, and eating fresh raspberries.
Kathryn teaches Sunday family history classes at the BYU Family History Library, and presents frequently at family history events. For more information, visit her Family History Learning Resources page