Now What?

Now that things are easier to find, the question arises do I do a complete do over as Thomas MacEntee suggests? I really hate the idea of “tossing” things aside and starting over it seems so overwhelming. It occurred to me that perhaps the next logical step would be to figure out what do I have and what am I missing. Luckily for me I have Sandra Rumble’s wonderful software GenDetective. Yes, Sandy is my friend; no she didn’t ask me to do this nor am I an employee of Rumblesoft, just to be clear.

GenDetective is a wonderful tool to help you visualize your family research plus it is easy and fun to use. Anyone can use it as it’s compatible with FTM, RoootsMagic, Legacy and Ancestry. All you have to do is make a GEDcom file, export it to GenDetective click on Analyze My Family and your done!  With this software you can run all kinds of reports that help you see your progress in your journey of researching your family history. From bar graphs, footsteps and maps your progress becomes tangible.

 

For example, this screenshot shows me who is missing a birth date, birth location and if I have full names for the parents. The little foot prints at the top show me I’m not too bad. But clearly there is info missing as indicated by the purple, pink and blue colors on the graph. This report can also be run for more specific things such as immigration, census, military, and occupation. You can make it as detailed as you want. It also becomes a wonderful companion when planning a trip to a courthouse. Sandy also has a whole section devoted to preparing for a trip. Guiding you through the five w’s-who, what, what, where and how.

But the report I love the most is, My Family: Research Progress for …and you pick your ancestor.

This partial screen shot shows me what I have for one particular ancestor, my 2x Great-Grandfather Joel D. Charles. According to the little footie’s at the top I have 8 out of 10. Not bad! The report tells me I need to find his occupation, a burial date, an obituary, a will or probate records and a cemetery marker. Life after organizing my files will now make it easier for me to find the missing information. I know, for example that I have a picture of his headstone.  I also have an index for his probate records which will help with searching on Familysearch.org.  Armed with this new courage, going back to my RootsMagic or FTM or even Ancestry.com to fill in the missing information will be easy. Doing a complete do-over is daunting to say the least and I’m not sure I’m up to the task. But filling in the missing information one ancestor at a time is certainly a more do-able approach for me.

Check it out at GenDetective.com.