Search
About Me

I'm Jennifer, and I'm an Occasional Genealogist... sort of. Like many of you, I started as an Occasional Genealogist. I had to squeeze research into my free time. Then I got my first genealogy job and for awhile, it was genealogy all the time! Now I have two kids. I do other people's genealogy constantly but my own? Coming up with ways to do great genealogy, despite the interruptions, is mandatory.
I have been terrible at taking notes and keeping a research log. The notes I have made are scribbled in a notebook and on scraps of paper. My question is should I go back and put the old notes into a research log or just keep a log going forward? Also how do you organize a log...by person, place? Thanks for your help.
ReplyDeleteA log is less useful if it doesn't contain every source you looked at. That means you do need to add your past information but prioritize logging your research going forward. As far as how to organize it, that's not a simple answer. It depends both on the method you're using and your research. I have so much overlap in my family, I keep one log for everything (in Excel, which makes it pretty easy to deal with so much information). Also remember, you don't have to keep a "log" if you work digitally. A log was designed to deal with the issues with paper. There are alternatives in the 21st century.
Delete