Genealogy Do-Over Week 1: Preparing to Research

Like others, I got excited at the prospect of Thomas MacEntee's 'Genealogy Do-Over', and immediately flung myself into the first three topics he is covering this week:

• Setting Previous Research Aside
• Preparing to Research
• Establishing Base Practices and Guidelines

Yesterday's post covered the first part: Setting Previous Research Aside, so here's today's:

Part 2: Preparing to Research

And this is where I (and, probably, many others) fall down in spectacular fashion.  This is probably why I spend so much valuable research time chasing BSOs (or Bright Shiny Objects, as Thomas MacEntee calls them *grin*).  Not because I am bored, but because I have not prepared well enough.  If I had prepared, then I wouldn't feel the need to go off chasing a better software, a better this, a better that *coughs*.

No, if you prepare beforehand, you shouldn't find yourself spinning in circles because you forgot you needed something.  This is 'futureproofing the past'...

Software I will need
Legacy - for the people; it would take too much time to learn something new
Custodian - to put the sources in and record those unlinked people's sources
Genscriber - to transcribe the censuses, so I don't need to guess again and again
Evernote - to keep the project emails and research logs in
Dragon Naturally Speaking (speech recognition software) - train this up in case my hand gets worse and typing becomes painful

Websites
FreeBMD - to get the BMD references from (in case I can afford certificates!)
FindMyPast - to get the parish register info from (images, in some cases)
Google Drive - to backup 'reference library'
Dropbox - to backup Do-over database
Sugarsync - to backup everything

And, if I have time after my full-time job:
FamilySearch indexing
WikiTree
FamilySearch - get those sources in my tree

Part 3: Establishing Base Practices and Guidelines follows tomorrow.


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