What are your research habits? When you sit down to work on your family history, what are the routines that you follow to get you started?

 

I know I am assuming that you have routines, but I am guessing that you do. Just like you have morning routines for the morning prep. Alarm goes off, hit snooze, goes off again, get up, shower, brush your teeth, get that morning coffee. But what about research time?

I think it depends doesn’t it? How much time you have or when you researched last or….whether you are researching before or after 1850.

 

For those ancestors born after 1850 I would guess we all go very quickly to one of our favorite databases and look for census records.  I asked AI, “What are the steps for researching ancestors from before 1850?” It gave me a pretty good list but maybe more importantly, it gave me the resources it took the steps from. Here are the general resources it used: MyHeritage, FamilySearch, Family Tree and St. Louis County Library in MO. I checked each item and sure enough came up with the AI steps.

 

So, what do you do? Here are the steps I found from the above resources:

A few items left off the AI list: get organized including clearing your desk, identifying your focus question, start with what you know, and set up your note page in preparation for all you will find and maybe look for but not find.

 

I am sure that you all have go-to sites where you look for all the above. Do you also have some sites that might not be places you typically go but that might be great for this research session? Do you use Cyndi’s List?

 

I asked an HQRL librarian what she used and here are some of her go-to sites: American Ancestors, county genealogical and/or historical societies, Midwest Genealogical Center, NARA, Allen County Library, larger libraries in larger cities, Chronicling America (newspapers), and county or city histories. Googling can give some suggestions as well. Family Tree Magazine each year comes up with a list of top sites, free and subscription.  This is just to name a few.

 

Whew! So Step 1A – get those pencils sharpened and that cup of coffee and get to work. Oh yes, go to HQRL and also, sign-up for classes at HQ (What is your name? and Dutch records in March).

 

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com

Talk about a dream family history center! We had a great virtual tour this week of the Midwest Genealogy Center which is the largest public genealogy library in the US. It is a fantastic resource for those people who travel to Missouri or who live in the area where they can get a public library card as it is part of the Mid-Continent Public Library System. But what about for us in Washington State. It can benefit us, too.

 

Here is my suggestion. Go to Midwest Genealogy Center | Mid-Continent Public Library at www.mymcpl.org/genealogy and explore. There are services that you can take part in that are free on a guest pass from your home. Including classes, webinars and consultations. They have programs for kids, free forms you can download, and oral history projects/memory lab just to name a few. They also are part of the interlibrary exchange program so you can check things out from your local library that may be located in Missouri. There is way too much for me to describe and you would be better off looking at their own information.  They also have programs on YouTube. Watch for the name Iveta who has many programs that she hosts including special interest groups for German and several others. She did our tour and was great.

 

Oh, and by the by, the resources they have are for the entire US, not just Missouri.

 

Our next class is “What is Your Name?” and will discuss naming patterns. I am looking forward to seeing what light it sheds on my family names. As you are quite aware, as we go further back in generations, we have more and more surnames to contend with. So, I am just focusing my thinking on the big four, for the most part – Hartzell, Ostrander, Vance, and Kingsley. I may throw in a few others that I have found something about such as Reneau (Reno), Brandenburg, and Faris or that I have found little about such as Pennybaker, Arnold, or Beck. I know, far too many to really say I am focusing. Shake your fingers at me and tell me to read my own blog!

 

That is my biggest problem I believe. The difference between what I should do and what I want to do. I am hoping that with greater knowledge from this class I can determine the next step. As we have discussed in this blog before, for me it is about going deeper rather than collecting more names. The other side to that concept is that I have always been curious about where the family came from as far as from where across the ocean. I have the DNA done which points me in a general direction, but my family has been in America for the most part, since before the US became the US. I think this is why I keep resisting the deeper rather than wider concept. I just want that one or two proven pieces that say we came from Germany or from France, etc. Boats, Immigration records, Naturalization, etc!

 

I have started a To Do list and a different list of questions that come up as I research so that I can stay on topic with the research but not forget the thinking that is generated. Then I take a day to just go through the lists and try to answer or complete some.  At least that is the plan!  We will see how that works.

 

See you on Thursday March 5th for “What is Your Name?”

 

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.org

Bummer! Our speaker was ill this week and had to cancel. We will try to reschedule it soon. In the meantime, I started to re-read her book, The Occasional Genealogist, and started to wonder how I could apply the last speaker’s info and the info from Jennifer’s book.

 

Both of these speakers are professional genealogists who have other things going on in their lives. I am not a professional genealogist but an educator by trade. I look at their work and compare it to my work as an educator. Here is my take on it:

Looking at that last piece, it could be a narrative, spreadsheet, web, or what we used to call a KWL Chart (Know, What I want to know, What I Learned). I would modify the last to What I Found, What I Didn’t Find, What I Need to Do Next. I would head each of these organizers with a) Date of the research, b) The Research Question, and c) Resource I am Using.

 

I hope all of that makes sense. Again, I will try to reschedule our last speaker. Watch for that as it may take a while to get it scheduled. In the meantime, lets take a look at what we can find in the Midwest Continent Library which is our next class.

 

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com

Working with the new Brick Wall Buster cards that I just got! This was the learning from the last class as you recall. I chose to apply them to what might be my most challenging brick wall. Hindsight tells me I maybe should have started with an easier one. Oh well!

 

I haven’t solved anything yet but I can tell one thing already, this system helps to keep you organized. By that I don’t mean creating a new folder system but in my head. I have researched this person for years and never get past where I currently am but each time I kind of start over because I lose track of what I found the last time.

 

With this new approach, I can put the information on the wall in a manner that I can make sense of and as I review what I already have I can note the research that I might need to do next. For example: I have a daughter for my ancestor named Emily, listed in one document that I find nowhere else. That tells me there are options to investigate. It could be that Emily died young, another family could be caring for her, the initial listing was incorrectly noted as a daughter, or maybe something else.

 

I do suspect that the mother and father were divorced shortly after this child might have been born but that they might have still been living together regardless. Her older brother was my ancestor so I was looking for her to give my some information about the parents where abouts.

 

There are interesting “facts” that I have noticed as I tried this new system and actually got “physical” with the notes. On one census it indicates that Mom may have been born about 1834, however on another census it indicates about 1840 and another 1826. Now is this 3 different people with the same locations and people around them or inaccurate reporting or just don’t want to admit my age???

 

My point with all of this is that by using the card system and physically moving around to put the information on a board to organize the thinking, I believe it creates a process that will not be as easily forgotten when I get back to it. It also created a system where I can note, (and see the note in front of me) the potential next step in the research. What am I missing and where do I need to go next.

 

Now with all that said, it could be the next step is to a different brick wall or to a professional genealogist to work on this one!

 

Next class, “Essential Shortcuts for Genealogists”, by the author of the Occasional Genealogist. Does that describe you or does it sound like tips you could use? If so, go back to the main page of our website and get signed-up.

 

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com

What a great class we just had, “New Strategies for Brick Wall Busting.”  Before I forget, the speaker was Kim Richardsaon, Genealogy Brick Wall Solution | Brick Wall Buster Cards.

 

One of the first things Kim talked about was that this strategy was what she uses and can be modified to work for you. The most important idea was that it was about getting physically involved with the research rather than just clicking keys on the computer. It was about a way to use more of your brain to move the information you are finding into your thinking so that you can manipulate it and remember it.

 

She recommended using sticky notes on a wall or board to be able to see the thinking process you were using.  For example: 3 same named people. Put their names on sticky notes on a board and look for birth, marriage death, military experience, census locations, occupations, kids, spouse, parents, etc in columns. Under each, put sticky notes with the facts that you find. One fact per note. Pretty soon you will be able to see the gaps, duplicates, errors in thinking like dates that don’t seem right. You will be able to move things around to fit better scenarios and you will see what additional research you should do to answer your research question figuring out which of the same named people might belong on your tree or in what order.

 

It is amazing what we can see when we get more body parts involved with the critical thinking that we are doing. It is why teachers had us role play concepts or make up songs/poems to remember things like the alphabet, notes on the lines of music, etc. It may have been acting or writing or singing or dancing. We taught my daughter about football so that she would enjoy it when we watched by setting up her rock collection into different teams on the floor and moving them like the players. Silly, yes. Did it work, yes.

 

We have actually done it in the library when helping people with their issues. Making a grid or a web on the white board, putting all the facts down, and looking at it from a different perspective.

 

This makes me excited. It is a reminder of my education roots and problem solving strategies from the classroom. When we get physically involved with the research new discoveries may happen. -----Breakthroughs in our brick walls.

 

I highly recommend going to her website and checking out her strategies. It is well worth the time. It also reminds us that this stuff can get lost so easily if we don’t have a strategy for organizing our thinking, especially if this isn’t all we do in life. Kim works for the State of Mississippi in a totally unrelated field but does this because it makes her happy and you could tell.

 

Along the same lines, our next speaker wrote the book, The Occassional Genealogist, and I can’t wait to apply her teachings. She is a clogger who also does genealogy.

 

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com

What a great class we just had, “New Strategies for Brick Wall Busting.”  Before I forget, the speaker was Kim Richardsaon, Genealogy Brick Wall Solution | Brick Wall Buster Cards.

 

One of the first things Kim talked about was that this strategy was what she uses and can be modified to work for you. The most important idea was that it was about getting physically involved with the research rather than just clicking keys on the computer. It was about a way to use more of your brain to move the information you are finding into your thinking so that you can manipulate it and remember it.

 

She recommended using sticky notes on a wall or board to be able to see the thinking process you were using.  For example: 3 same named people. Put their names on sticky notes on a board and look for birth, marriage death, military experience, census locations, occupations, kids, spouse, parents, etc in columns. Under each, put sticky notes with the facts that you find. One fact per note. Pretty soon you will be able to see the gaps, duplicates, errors in thinking like dates that don’t seem right. You will be able to move things around to fit better scenarios and you will see what additional research you should do to answer your research question figuring out which of the same named people might belong on your tree or in what order.

 

It is amazing what we can see when we get more body parts involved with the critical thinking that we are doing. It is why teachers had us role play concepts or make up songs/poems to remember things like the alphabet, notes on the lines of music, etc. It may have been acting or writing or singing or dancing. We taught my daughter about football so that she would enjoy it when we watched by setting up her rock collection into different teams on the floor and moving them like the players. Silly, yes. Did it work, yes.

 

We have actually done it in the library when helping people with their issues. Making a grid or a web on the white board, putting all the facts down, and looking at it from a different perspective.

 

This makes me excited. It is a reminder of my education roots and problem solving strategies from the classroom. When we get physically involved with the research new discoveries may happen. -----Breakthroughs in our brick walls.

 

I highly recommend going to her website and checking out her strategies. It is well worth the time. It also reminds us that this stuff can get lost so easily if we don’t have a strategy for organizing our thinking, especially if this isn’t all we do in life. Kim works for the State of Mississippi in a totally unrelated field but does this because it makes her happy and you could tell.

 

Along the same lines, our next speaker wrote the book, The Occassional Genealogist, and I can’t wait to apply her teachings. She is a clogger who also does genealogy.

 

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com

I was thinking about our next class on new strategies for brick wall busting and it made me wonder, “what creates a brick wall, why do they show up throughout our trees?” So, I started looking at mine to figure out what I needed to learn from our next speaker.

My first thoughts were:

It seems, as I think about all of this, that the issues fall into 2 camps. One being they really have no more records to find in history. The other, probably more common in my tree, I haven’t tried all the places I could to find the information. Have I just skipped the hard part or am I too focused on proof that I ignore potential hints?

 

It also reminds me of some recent reading about the difference between searching and researching. Do I just look to tag onto what other people have found searching for their connections that might be mine as well and when their trail ends, so does mine? Do I actually research, looking for new records in places that I haven’t looked yet? Do I actually find information and then triangulate the information to come to a reasonable conclusion? Do I even follow my own advice and start with a research question or objective that is clear, focused, specific? Why is it that we often know more than we actually follow through on?

 

I ask myself all these questions. Sometimes I think if I could just find 1 fact that I didn’t know before about the history my family lived in or the family member themselves, I could get back on track. Perhaps my next step is to learn to use databases that take me to Ireland or Scotland or Germany as I have evidence of those connections.

 

Here is my thinking, being a family historian is not easy. As an educator I know that sometimes going down an unknown path is not easy either. To learn new things we have to find a balance. A balance between too easy and too hard. If it is too easy, we get bored. If it is too hard, too far beyond our scope of reasonably challenging, we get overwhelmed and quit.

 

I watched a video of my grandson sitting in a toy box reaching for books outside of the box. If he couldn’t reach them, he would try with the other hand. He would grab the ones he wanted and then sit down to read in his comfy little box. He knew his objective, tried different strategies, and sat down to do it. I need to learn from a toddler!

 

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.org

Going back to our Blog Roots means we started this blog to share our learning and lets do that. Our 1^st 2026 class was on Directories. What take aways do we have from our class on directories? My first one is that there are a ton of different types of directories, some more helpful for doing family history than others. Another big one for me is not to just skip right to the names you might be looking for, but to read that information in the beginning that explains what you are looking at in this directory, why it was created, what the abbreviations are, etc. Our speaker showed how all that beginning information could be rich in cultural and historical content.

 

I am not sure which comes first, understanding what you might be looking for or figuring out the best place to look for it. I’ll just take them one at a time and we can decide later which to do first. I kind of think it might be a combination or depend on the situation.

 

First let’s tackle “the what” I am looking for issue. Originally, city directories were largely for advertising. If you know where your ancestor worked or a business they owned, you could confirm that in a directory. Early city directories might give you names, addresses, spouses, etc. Some even said the individual had died or had moved. Sometimes you could find maps of the city or county or farm rural routes. Those were cool as you could find neighbors and those might have been other family members or associates.

 

There were directories for professionals, churches, fraternal organizations, hospitals, and just about any group that you might think of even a directory for “society people.”  However, keep in mind that some of these were national directories, some city, some county, etc but not all directories could be found in every community. If you do find one that fits your needs, it is likely to be 6 months to a year old by the time the material is gathered and published. Just keep that in mind.

 

That takes us to finding them. There are the usual places like Ancestry and Family Search. This might be a great time to investigate the state archives, genealogical and historical societies and state libraries of the state you are interested in. Don’t be afraid to call them if you don’t see something searchable online. DonsList.net, Cyndi’s List, and the Allen County Public Library are a few additional locations to search. And don’t forget to check our own HQRL.

 

I can’t possibly give you everything that our speaker shared. This Blog would go on for quite some time. One tip I will share is this. Directories are a good source for those years between censuses. If your family is in one community one census and a different one the next try this. Start with the earlier census and look for every year in that community until you don’t find them. Next go to the next census and work backwards every year in that community until you don’t find them. That should at least narrow your search. Hopefully, the 2 searches will meet up.

 

It seems we all have some work to do. I hope you can find 1 or two ideas in all of this that you can use. Often finding one idea will generate other ideas and options and you are off an running.

 

Until next time - Brickwall Busters!

 

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com