Organizing – Family Locket

Tracking DNA Research Status in Airtable

Dec 29, 2022

If you’ve started working to add DNA evidence to your family history research, you may need a way to track your progress. I developed the Airtable base template titled “Track Your Ancestral Research” in September 2022 and recently added fields and bases to track DNA information. You can access the template with added DNA fields and tables on Airtable Universe. When you click the link, you’ll be able to explore the base and make a...

Tracking Research Projects in Airtable

Sep 17, 2022

Do you have several research logs, reports, and other research tools for your ancestors that represent months or years of research? Do you ever forget that you’ve created a tool such as a timeline only to recreate it? I set up an Airtable base to track my research projects, and today am sharing my thought process. You can do something similar for your research. I’ve published my base under the title Track Your Ancestral Research...

DNA Tools Bell Curve

Feb 25, 2021

Many people want to incorporate their DNA test results in their family history research, and there is so much to learn with new tools continually developing. I think a lot about how to simplify the explanations about DNA and the process of using DNA results to find and confirm ancestors. My goal is to help people navigate the process and find success in their research. I created this DNA Tools Bell Curve graphic to briefly...

DNA Research Flow

Sep 24, 2020

Have you thought about the steps to take to work through a DNA research project? Have you ever been stuck or lost during a project and wondered what you should do next? What do you do? I’ve thought about it a lot, and it motivated me to create DNA Process Trees that have a stepwise model/instructions/flowchart of the main steps to take when working through a DNA research objective. The steps help me maximize the...

Reduce Browser Clutter with OneTab and Increase Productivity

Jul 16, 2020

Are you ready for a new productivity tip? Imagine you are in the middle of a research session with ten different tabs open on Google Chrome. Glancing at the clock you realize you have to join an online meeting and close your tabs, but you hate to lose the web-pages that will take you several minutes to relocate and reopen. Perhaps your internet has slowed down because you have so many tabs open but again,...

Airtable Research Logs

May 14, 2020

Airtable is a hybrid spreadsheet and database. Most database tools are beyond the technological level of typical users, so most people don’t use database tools. Yet, databases are highly useful. Luckily for us, Airtable is a database tool that doesn’t require that you know how to code. If you are familiar with spreadsheets, you’ll pick it up right away. Each database is called “base.” Think of it as a spreadsheet with multiple sheets/tabs. Each sheet...

Using Canva to Add Source Citations to Document Images

Apr 24, 2020

Genealogy Standard #28 states, “Genealogists attach citations to images and printouts.”[1] This is to ensure that a record will never be without its citation, but what is the best way to do this? I have tried a few different approaches with varying degrees of success, but then I tried Canva, a free online publishing tool that makes it possible to “design anything and publish anywhere.” I had been using Canva for several years to create...

How to Create a Digital Document Storing Protocol

Apr 23, 2020

Do you have a specific way to deal with the genealogy documents that you scan or download from a website? Have you set up digital file folders for your documents? How do you attach a citation to a document so it doesn’t become separated from it’s source? These are all questions we grapple with until we decide on a protocol that works for us. There is no one size fits all, when it comes to...

Adding a Table of Contents to an Evernote Notebook

Apr 17, 2020

Have you wished for a way to organize your notebooks in Evernote? You may have hundreds of notes in a notebook and even searching by tags brings up too many notes. Did you know you can create a custom note that can serve as a table of contents? You can organize this custom note any way you like and in the process clean up your notebooks as well. If you’d like to learn more about...