Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

This afternoon I took the time to listen to Thomas MacEntee on Legacy Family Tree Webinar. His topic was, The Genealogy Do-Over™: A Year of Learning from Mistakes.  

He started with, "The Seven Deadly Sins of a Sloppy Genealogist-A Learning Opportunity

       ·      Not developing a plan for finding ancestors

·         Not following standards

·         Not tracking my research and what records I already used

·         Not citing sources and noting where I found information

·         Not discriminating between good and unreliable sources

·         Not keeping my paper and digital files organized

·         Not Sharing my research responsibly with other

 Well it’s time to come clean, stand up and confess my sins. I am guilty on all of these points! When it comes to doing my research, I am clearly affected by ADHD, or as Tom refers’ to it as a “shiny leaf”. When I started my research years ago I just dove right in. No records were kept, no logs were kept. Consequently I spent hours relooking for something that I saw maybe an hour ago or it could have been days ago. It was and still is a nightmare! As for the sources, HA! If you don’t know where you got it how can you source it? I will say I have gotten better at one thing though and that is discerning the good record from the unreliable. Many people out there use Ancestry.com as their source, WRONG. If a person in a family tree hasn’t been sourced or documented I move on.

You know, how they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, here is my biggest and most embarrassing downfall:

 

 

This was my bed yesterday. I was looking for pictures of my Mom as a girl with her mother and step-father. I did eventually find a couple of pictures and got them scanned. But when I was done, back in the box they went.

 

 

 

This is where all my paper work has accumulated. Not very pretty is it? I have three big binders that contain two or three families, depending on how much I have found. BUT if something comes out, it makes the pile on the bay window and who knows how long it will stay there.

I love being my family’s historian. The challenges, the thrill of the hunt and the victory of breaking through that brick wall have truly been rewarding. I want to be more organized. I want to keep better records. I want to make myself a research plan. Not to use work as an excuse, but now that I am happily unemployed, there actually is time for me to do all this. However Tom, it’s probably going to take me more than 13 weeks!

HMMM, I wonder if Sandy Rumble’s daughter would like to earn some service hours?