RLP 400: From Searcher to Researcher: Listener Takeaways from 400 Episodes

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro, episode 400: From Searcher to Researcher: Listener Takeaways from 400 Episodes. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the authors of Research Like a Pro A Genealogist Guide. With Robin Wirthlin they also co-authored the companion volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA. Join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases.

Nicole (41s):
Let’s go. Today’s episode is sponsored by Newspapers.com. Hi everyone, welcome to Research Like a Pro.

Diana (48s):
Hi Nicole. How are you today?

Nicole (50s):
I’m doing great and I’ve been working on my 14 day challenge research and writing the report. And yes, Full Text Search I’m a little behind, but I did follow my research plan and one of the interesting things was using Full Text Search to find tax records and with the name Keaton, it presented a few challenges just because that name can be hard to be transcribed correctly by the AI. And so sometimes the K is an R or, and the spelling can be so variable too with Keaton. Sometimes it’s KEA or KEE and even strange spellings like KEDEN, and I had never thought to search for that before.

Diana (1m 37s):
Yes, interesting. But

Nicole (1m 38s):
When I did the question mark wild card, I did “K??T?N” and that picked up most of the instances. And then I also would try “K?T?N”. And then if I wasn’t finding anything that I thought should be there, I would try some of the other ones like adding a D In the middle or whatever. But sometimes I just couldn’t find what I was looking for, so I had to go to the images and just browse and then sure enough I would find them there. But the name was just illegible and the computer couldn’t read it, but I could clearly see it because they were all organized by the first letter. So it was like clear to see that these were all K names, you know.

Diana (2m 21s):
That’s a really good lesson, that Full Text Search may not pick up everything

Nicole (2m 25s):
A hundred percent it doesn’t pick up everything and it really struggles with tax records. And I noticed that even if I search Keaton Ephraim, like they’re listed in tax records with their last name first, it sometimes will transcribe all the last names in one column and then later it will transcribe all the first names, so that Keaton and Ephraim were not even next to each other.

Diana (2m 45s):
mmm. Yeah, interesting.

Nicole (2m 45s):
So I had to only search for the last name.

Diana (2m 49s):
Interesting.

Nicole (2m 50s):
What are you working on?

Diana (2m 52s):
Well, I’ve just been working on my syllabus material for the National Genealogical Society Conference coming up in May. And it’s always fun to sit down and really think through how I’m going to teach the classes. And both of my classes are on court records, which is really interesting. I’ve done a lot of research on my females in my line and a lot of the information has come from court records. So I’m excited to share some case studies and some tips on using court records. And of course Full Text Search will be part of it because that is how we can often find some things that are not indexed and we don’t know where the, where they will pop up.

Diana (3m 35s):
So yeah, it’s, it’s fun.

Nicole (3m 37s):
That’s so true. It’s just interesting to try Full Text Search for various record types. I do have to say the other thing I did with my Keaton search was that I restricted it to government records, tax records. That’s the category they give you for record types for that. And so after restricting it to that place and then a specific county that I was searching, and then the other strategy I used was to restrict it just to one microfilm that I knew had tax records for my county on it. And they were all at the state level with Mississippi, so it’s kind of tricky because some of the folders within that, ’cause they were like manilla folders that they were digitizing, some of them would be for one county, and then in the same microfilm, the digitized will be like two or three counties with like three folders of taxes.

Nicole (4m 27s):
So it’s interesting.

Diana (4m 27s):
Wow. You just really have to get to know the records, that you’re working in. They’re also different.

Nicole (4m 36s):
Yeah. Well, our announcements for today are that our next webinar In the Research Like a Pro Webinar Series will be Saturday, March 21st at 11:00 AM Mountain Time. And it is going to be called Adopted Grandfather’s Biological Parents Were Also Adopted: Using atDNA and Y-DNA to Answer Family Mysteries. This will be presented by Heidi Mathis, who’s one of the researchers here at FamilyLocket. And it’s about the client’s grandfather who was abandoned on his adoptive parents’ front porch in 1939 at age six. Which family stories were true? Was he Polish and abandoned by immigrants? Was he related to his putative biological parents Roberta Overstreet and Robert A. Bach? The client and her uncle’s DNA tests provided the clues needed to point the documentary research in the right direction to answer these family mysteries.

Nicole (5m 23s):
So the localities that are relevant are Indiana, Oklahoma City, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. So that will be fun. And we love hearing from Heidi. She’s been on the podcast before talking about German research and other topics. So it’ll be fun to hear from her in the webinar series. If you haven’t registered yet, you can still register and the next study group will begin August, 2026, and we will begin registration for that on May 1st. So be ready if you’d like to join that study group. And if you’d like to be a peer group leader for that study group, please apply on our website or email us and let us know, and you can receive complimentary registration. If you haven’t signed up for our Monday newsletter, you can do that and get new posts, upcoming lectures, coupon codes in our Monday newsletter.

Nicole (6m 8s):
Well, when this comes out, RootsTech is over. So now the next conference that we have to look forward to is the National Genealogical Society Conference that’s coming up. But before that, I’m teaching a workshop at the National Genealogical Society Virtual Offering, the Gentech Toolbox series. And that one is going to be on March 16th. So next Monday it’s about Transcribing Handwritten Documents with Artificial Intelligence. This is the same topic as the talk I gave for in-person RootsTech attendees, but it’s gonna be a more hands-on format so you can get all the top tips for transcribing handwritten documents with AI.

Nicole (6m 48s):
I’m also speaking at the North Carolina Genealogists Society Virtual Conference on March 27th this month, Using AI to Abstract 19th Century North Carolina Deeds. But then after that, our next conference will be in Fort Wayne, Indiana and that’s the National Genealogical Society Conference, May 27th through the 30th. And this is such a fun one this year, the title is America at 2 50 for the Country’s 250th anniversary. So we’re both teaching several classes. I’m teaching a workshop about Decoding America’s past Using AI to Understand 250 Years of Terminology.

Nicole (7m 28s):
Actually that’s not a workshop, that’s just a regular class. And then my other class is gonna be about DNA Reveals Barsheba Tharp’s Ancestry in America’s Westward Migration. And then the last one is the workshop, Deciphering Script and Scroll: a Practical Workshop for Early Handwriting. And this is a mini workshop where you just, without any computers at all, just working on writing and deciphering the handwriting. And then mom, your lectures are both about court records this year, so that’ll be fun. So Diana is teaching about Reconstructing Female Networks Through Antebellum Court Records and Property Transfers, and Uncovering Family Stories Through American Court Records Research Strategies.

Diana (8m 11s):
Right. It’s kind of fun to be sharing some of my research and as we all know, our females are hidden and obscured In the records and we have to figure out more about them by researching the men in their lives and finding the little bits and pieces that we can to piece together their lives. So I’m excited to share. Well, today we are celebrating our 400th podcast episode,

Nicole (8m 38s):
Woo hoo!

Diana (8m 38s):
And so we wanted to highlight our listeners. Several of you have shared your comments with us over the years about how the Research Like a Pro podcast has helped you. And so we’ve gathered several comments from listeners and we are going to share those today.

Nicole (8m 55s):
Yay, we’re so excited to have made it to 400 Episodes. I read somewhere online that only 1% of podcasts make it this far.

Diana (9m 2s):
Well, it is an amazing number, and I am always shocked when I think about how many years we’ve been doing this every Monday, a new episode. So I think it’s probably because we really have a lot of fun talking together or else maybe we would’ve gotten bored of it if we were just by ourselves

Nicole (9m 18s):
A hundred percent. Every time we get on to podcast together, we spend a few minutes just updating each other on the fun things we’re doing and did you hear about this? And have you tried that? So that definitely is a motivational factor.

Diana (9m 32s):
It is. If you’re having a lot of fun, then you keep doing it.

Nicole (9m 36s):
And it’s motivational to hear from our listeners and to see how our podcasts are helpful. So thank you for everyone who’s given us that feedback. Well, let’s dive into our first comment from Kira Foltz. She says, “Congrats on reaching this milestone. Both of your dynamic personalities and excellent teaching abilities is what makes RLP such a success. The workflows you’ve put in place help me conquer imposter syndrome on the daily, reinforcing the idea that I really do have the tools to accomplish this research on my own. I’m always waiting for Monday’s episode drops, plus I have your RLP with AI workshop to thank for helping me navigate this new overwhelming world of the large language models we live in now.

Nicole (10m 22s):
Happy 400.” I love that, Kira, Thank you for sharing that. And I love what you said about imposter syndrome. I think a lot of the time in anything that people do, we have that inner voice that says you’re not doing a good enough job. And so it’s helpful to be able to learn and talk with other people who are trying to improve and get better and feel like I can do this. So that’s great.

Diana (10m 48s):
I totally agree. And we want to push ourselves to do more and be better. And so even if we have imposter syndrome, we should just get over it and try something new, right? I think we’ve all felt that. Well, our next comment is from Lisa and she says, “I took your TIGR course last June,” so that was the Texas Institute, “on AI and it changed my life. I am now a huge fan of yours as well as Steve and Mark. I’m writing to you in hopes that you can help me. Here’s my dilemma. I listened to one of your podcasts where Diana was talking about the wisdom of uploading a lengthy document to Claude one page at a time to get a more pure transcript. I think her example was a land deed.

Diana (11m 30s):
She mentioned a great prompt she used. I have a 33 page will from 1790 that I would like Claude to transcribe and analyze. I can’t remember which podcast number it was or the date. I thought it was in December, but as I scrolled through them, I don’t see it. It is the great prompt I’m looking for as well as the process.” And so we found that that was actually episode 369 titled Decoding the 1819 Weatherford Assault Case in Frontier, Arkansas. I love it that Lisa remembered a specific episode and it was applicable to exactly what she needed to do with with AI and that deed.

Diana (12m 12s):
So well my, my example was court cases actually. And so hers was a will. I think anytime you’ve got those lengthy documents, you’d have to have some assistance, which is why AI is so awesome as our genealogy assistant in transcribing and organizing these big long documents or collections of documents.

Nicole (12m 35s):
Absolutely. I just used AI to help me transcribe a bounty land file from the National Archives and the Bounty Land Warrant file, and they were both pretty long, so it was nice to have the help. And then I just kind of got a workflow going, kind of like you shared in that podcast episode where, you know, I put it in Google AI Studio, Gemini transcribes it, then I check against the original, all the names and dates make sure those match up. And there were hardly any errors, but every once in a while there was like, you know, one day would be wrong and then, or one name could be a little off, and so correcting those then copying pasted into my Airtable log and it was just so fast. And I transferred everything to a Google doc too, so that was convenient.

Nicole (13m 19s):
But yeah, that is a really helpful use case of AI. And I love that she talked about Steve and Mark and their podcast. We have to shout out to them the Family History AI show is such a great podcast. Everyone should be listening to that if you’re at all interested in using AI for genealogy. And I absolutely love hearing each episode because it just helps me to keep a tab on what’s changing and being able to try the new things and just being aware that everything just goes along so quickly in the AI world faster than anything ever before. We always said that DNA changed quickly and it does, but AI is like 10 times.

Diana (14m 1s):
I agree. It is so hard to keep up And I do love a Steph and Mark’s podcast. So helpful to have someone looking out for us and giving us some tips that really apply just to the genealogy world and using artificial intelligence.

Nicole (14m 15s):
Yeah, can you imagine like when we started this podcast, I don’t think we had any idea about AI taking the genealogy world by storm in 2024, 25 and 26. And it’s just crazy to think about, you know, we started in like what, 2017, 2018 with professional genealogy and doing this podcast and, and we didn’t have Full Text Search and we didn’t have a way to transcribe handwritten documents with AI and, and those are two giant steps forward for us. So it’s just cool to see the changes that have happened just In the time we’ve been doing this podcast.

Diana (14m 51s):
I agree.

Nicole (14m 52s):
Alright, right. Well our next spotlight is Annette Wegner and Annette says, “In the spring of 2022, I was just starting out on my genealogy path of family discovery. However, I soon found the process overwhelming, confusing and daunting. Searching online I was finding out little tidbits about the mystery family that I had never knew of before, but soon it felt like I was collecting a million loose jigsaw puzzle pieces, but without a box. How was I ever going to put these pieces together with no box and no picture on the lid? In 2023 I discovered your podcast and thanks to your gentle leading I have made great strides in putting the pieces of my family story together. Impressed by what I was learning while listening to you both, I bought your book Research Like a Pro in the summer of 2025, I decided to go a step further and joined your fall 2025 Research Like a Pro study group.

Nicole (15m 40s):
And that was such a great experience. I decided to go even further. I applied for and was accepted into the 2026 Winter ICAPGen Four Generation project study group. My end goal is to become accredited, therefore I thank you both for giving me the tools to find my lost family and thank you for helping me put the puzzle pieces together and thank you for all that you do to help us Research Like a Pro.” I love hearing that. It’s so cool to hear how Annette is growing in her skills and abilities, and pursuing accreditation now and that she’s been able to have success with her family research.

Diana (16m 18s):
Oh I wholeheartedly agree. And you know, when I first became accredited and I was so excited to have learned all of these steps and I started writing the Research Like a Pro blog posts way back when and then we turned it into a book. I remember writing a little bit in the foreword that we hoped it would help people have a process and learn how to become better researchers. And it is just really affirming to hear from someone like Annette who has really helped her to grow. And I love that. It just makes us so happy.

Nicole (16m 51s):
Yes. And I was thinking about what she said about the box where like, where do I put all these puzzle pieces? I don’t even have a box. That’s kind of how I felt too. And I remember asking you like, ’cause you had started doing research for clients so you were like, you know, you were gonna help me become better. So anyway, I asked you like, can you make a like template or like a document that has all the steps I need to do in it. And, and still to this day I don’t feel like I’ve started a research project unless I have like my research project document template that you made. I know it’s so helpful to have a place to put the objective and the notes that you’re gathering, and the starting point, and the locality information and and the research plan.

Nicole (17m 40s):
So it’s just, important to have that box. We have to have a place to put our puzzle pieces. And then of course when we started using Airtable, you know, before Airtable we used a research log. So any kind of research log, you know you have to have that box where to put those puzzle pieces, otherwise you’re just carrying around puzzle pieces and you can never use your hands for anything else because you’re holding puzzle pieces all the time. And if you let go you’ll drop them all.

Diana (18m 5s):
I love it. That is such a fun analogy. Well thank you for saying all that Annette, we so appreciate it. Our next commenter is Diane Markham and she says, “I had loved genealogy for nearly 20 years before I discovered the RLP podcast. However, while I didn’t realize it at the time, I was a searcher during those years, not a researcher. I was active but waiting for others to break down my brick wall because I didn’t know what to do once I gathered the low hanging fruit. Learning to slow down and follow the RLP steps changed everything. Since discovering your podcast about four years ago, I’ve taken your e-course, your study group, attended RootsTech twice and I’m counting the days until the 2026 event, have attended GRIP once and two SLIGs and I’ve submitted my four generation report for accreditation and it all started from listening to your podcast while painting my kitchen.

Diana (19m 0s):
Well what a fun success story, and I love that, that Diane has gone on to get more education. And we teach that in our last lesson for the study group and the e-course. You know, here’s all these ideas: conferences and institutes and really take advantage of the amazing educational opportunities there are all around us now, and so many of them virtual and easy to attend. So that’s really great. And another shout out for accreditation, how great that, you know, we’ve got lots of people going forward on that path.

Nicole (19m 35s):
Yeah, I’m hoping that if I eventually finish my certification that we can have some more people also going for a certification too. And it’s just wonderful for anyone who wants to get a credential to go through either process because you learn so much and it’s really cool to hear people starting with listening to our podcast and then going to institutes and getting a credential and, and I mean that’s awesome because our, the title of the podcast is Research Like a Pro, and so to become a professional genealogist we do need to do that piece of education with institutes and and thinking about credentialing and all that kind of thing because practice and study is what makes us better.

Nicole (20m 17s):
So it’s exciting and I’m really looking forward to seeing Diane and our other friends at future RootsTech conferences. So that’ll be fun.

Diana (20m 27s):
Well we do have a few people that I can think of who have been through our study group who went on to become Certified Genealogists and did the certification process. So I am not gonna mention names, but I can think of at least two or three that just started off with the study group. So it’s neat to see that happening as well.

Nicole (20m 50s):
Agreed. Okay, our next spotlight is Lisa Thomasinglass. She says, “As a beginner genealogist, I stumbled onto RLP about 10 podcasts in. What an education. I listened to every one for years, many times I search for back episodes when I’m facing a new challenge. So happy I found RLP.” And that’s just amazing to me that Lisa has been listening since episode 10, that is amazing. I think it’s so fun to think about how many episodes people have heard from us and the compliment that it pays to us that they have listened to all of them. So thank you for continuing to stick with us over the years.

Diana (21m 30s):
Absolutely. And for anyone who’s just discovered us, you might think that’s a little daunting to have 400 past episodes to go listen to. So I love the tip to just go search for something that can help you with whatever challenge you’re working on. Unless of course you want to, you know, take a road trip across the country and listen to all of them. And we have had comments from people that have done that very thing.

Nicole (21m 52s):
So that would be a long road trip.

Diana (21m 56s):
We can keep you company on those long trips.

Nicole (21m 58s):
Well I was going to say we try to put up transcripts of every episode and that’s an ongoing project, but if you remember specific words or whatever from a podcast, you can try searching for those on our website and hopefully that will help you find them. Otherwise the more general ideas are usually In the show notes, which are even easier to search through than the transcripts because those are like the main paragraphs that are the details for the podcast on the blog post page.

Diana (22m 28s):
Right.

Nicole (22m 28s):
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Nicole (23m 44s):
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Diana (23m 44s):
All right, well now we’re going to do a list of our top 10 Episodes and it’s fun to look at these, these episodes have the most total listens of all time. So number one is episode 185, Revisiting Timelines and Analysis Again.

Nicole (24m 6s):
That’s funny because we have gone through the ROP process several times on the podcast, so this was the most recent time that we did that. And so we did again. So the first time it was Timelines and Analysis. Second time was Revisiting, third time was Revisiting Timelines and Analysis Again.

Diana (24m 22s):
Right. So I think a lot of people start with with that again series to go through the whole series, which actually is a really great idea ’cause it will have the most up to date. You know how we’ve tweaked the process. So that one has 6,047 listens. For the next one, number two, we have another Revisiting Research Objectives Again and that’s episode 184 with 5,872 listens. Then we have episode 186 Revisiting Locality Research Again with 5,820 listens.

Diana (25m 6s):
Then episode 190, Revisiting Report Writing Again with 5,762. So that’s fun that those very top ones are that basic foundation. Well then we go to episode 156, which is different. This one is Tracing 19th Century Germans with Heidi Mathis. So Heidi is one of our German experts on our team and did a great series and came on the podcast to talk with us. And I think so many people have got those recent Germans that came in about 1850, 1860. And trying to figure out where they came from, learning more about them is tricky. So that episode 5,692 listens. And then we’ve got just episode number two on Research Objectives, way back to the beginning, which was 5,690 listens.

Diana (25m 54s):
And then the very first episode, which was our introduction with 5,665. Another popular one was RLP 158, which was Research Research Like a Pro DNA Course with Allison, part one. So Allison is another one of our team members and she took our DNA study group and she was writing all about her first project. So that’s one, that one has 5,660 listens and then Research Like a Pro episode 100 is Top Ten Tips to Research Like a Pro with 5,610 listens.

Diana (26m 35s):
And then finally at number 10, 197 Proving your Pedigree with DNA with Deborah Hoffman. So one of our colleagues and friends and that was 5,606 listens. So you can see they’re all In the range of 5,000 to 6,000 and so fun.

Nicole (26m 53s):
Well I was trying to remember when the first episode came out and can you believe it’s been seven years and six months since it came out on July 16th, 2018?

Diana (27m 5s):
That is amazing.

Nicole (27m 5s):
We’ve been doing this for over seven years. I was… Sometimes time is an odd thing in my mind it was like, oh, like you know, we’ve been doing this for like four or five years. Oh, seven years six months.

Diana (27m 17s):
Yeah, the years go by. That’s, that’s so fun.

Nicole (27m 21s):
The years go by. That is a true statement. Okay, well our next segment before we get back to our last few listener spotlights is fun podcast stats. And Gemini helped me come up with these. And so the first one is Binge Listening Time. So the average episode is about 37 and a half minutes, the average Research Like a Pro episode. And we usually try to aim for 30 minutes. Some of our DNA episodes with Research Like a Pro with DNA, were more like 40 or 50 minutes, but on the average there are like 30 to 40, so 37 and a half minutes.

Nicole (28m 1s):
And then if you multiply that by 400 Episodes, you get about 250 hours. So if you wanted to listen to all the Episodes of Research Like a Pro it would be 10 days and 10 hours of continuous listening without ever sleeping. Or approximately 41 days if you listen for six hours every day. So there you go. If you’re doing a road trip and if you only drive six hours a day, and of course if you drive 12 hours a day on your road trip, then it will be down to like 20 days of road tripping.

Diana (28m 33s):
Well, but then you could also listen to it on double speed. Ooh, they go faster. And I have heard from people that tell me they do that, And I do that with my podcasts too. I usually listen to like 1.5.

Nicole (28m 44s):
Me too. I can’t do double speed most of the time. No, I prefer 1.5 ish. Yeah, 1.7 maybe if I push it.

Diana (28m 53s):
Or 1.25 just depending on the speaker. So that’s a little tip you can speed us up a bit.

Nicole (29m 1s):
Next fun podcast stat is about Filling up a Concert Hall. So typical community theaters and concert halls, seat between 500 and a thousand people. And with an average of 1000 listeners in the first seven days of each episode being released, our average week is a sold out show in a small concert hall or theater. And if you wanna think about like a high school sports stadium, like a football stadium that typically seeds between 2000 and 5,000 people. And if you’re thinking about the total number of downloads or listens per episode, which is about an average of 2,500 or 3000, then we’re basically filling up the home side bleachers of a stadium of genealogy researchers.

Nicole (29m 49s):
So that’s fun to imagine all the people in the bleachers that are listening to the same episode as you. And then the last fun stat is the Genealogy Miles. So a lot of people let us know that they listen to podcasts while they are commuting or walking. So going with walking, if you’re one of our walkers who walks at an average speed of about three miles per hour and you’ve listened to all 400 Episodes, then you have been listening for about 750 miles of walking. And so if you’ve walked the whole time, you’ve walked all the way from Salt Lake City to San Francisco with us. So thanks for taking the Research Like a Pro podcast and process with you for over 700 miles.

Diana (30m 34s):
Oh, I love that. Those are some really fun stats. Well I’ve, I’ve heard from lots of people that will say, yes, you accompany me on my commute every day or you know, I, I’ve even heard comments like you got me through a really hard time because I was so sad about this. And then hearing your friendly voices just took my mind off of it. So whatever situation our listeners are in, we are glad to accompany you

Nicole (31m 2s):
And you do have such a friendly gentle voice mom.

Diana (31m 7s):
Well my favorite comment is somebody who told me that she turns us on when she needs to go to sleep because that friendly, gentle voice put her to sleep.

Nicole (31m 15s):
You’re so soothing.

Diana (31m 16s):
So I was very happy to know I could help with going to sleep as well. So there you go. Use this for whatever you need. I love it. Okay, so another fun comment by Tyler James McCain, “The Research Like a Pro process has revolutionized how I do research. I think it’s essential for anyone serious about approaching their research in a format that is guaranteed to help you make progress in your research. No matter if you’re new to research or already working at a professional level, Thank you for everything you do.” Well thanks Tyler, that is a wonderful comment and we do hope that we can help at any level. That’s the purpose.

Nicole (31m 55s):
I love that he said guaranteed to help you make progress. That’s something we kind of have settled on as like the goal, right? We, the goal isn’t to solve every one of our research problems because it a lot depends on external factors, but we can always make progress, you know, until we’ve finally exhausted all our resources, you know, and so it’s nice to be able to show progress by writing and that’s just one of the greatest things about writing a report at the end of your research is that you do have something to show for all the time that you spent, even if you didn’t solve it, you have made progress.

Diana (32m 32s):
Absolutely. And often it, so those reports that keep you going and you can come back and pick it up again, the research, and maybe by then a new record set has come online, you know, you can, you can just keep going. So yeah, progress is so key. I love that.

Nicole (32m 49s):
Okay, our next spotlight is Karen Beeme. She says, “I found the Research Like a Pro booth at RootsTech in 2020. I started listening to the podcast, ordered the books, and took the e classes, and a few years later took my first study group class. The podcast episodes on organizing physical and digital records were the start of my Research Like a Pro journey. The podcast episodes about research logs have reinforced everything I’ve learned In the books and classes about research, workflow and organization. The Episodes provide great examples of the Research Like a Pro process. They provide a quick easy listen to keep me motivated and on track with my research. The episodes also introduced me to the newest genealogy tech innovations.”

Nicole (33m 30s):
And I’m glad Karen mentioned that the episodes are quick and easy to listen to and that’s, that’s how we feel about them too. They’re quick and easy for us to record because we, we try not to make them too long or heavy and we usually use blog posts we’ve already written as kind of our outline or starting point. So I think that’s part of what’s helped us to get to episode 400 is just keeping it simple. But it’s also fun to be able to talk about, like she said, the newest tech innovations and things we’re trying out discoveries we’re making and all of that along with the Research Like a Pro process.

Diana (34m 8s):
Right. We did so many things on DNA, so many episodes when DNA first came out because we were, you know, developing the Research Like a Pro with DNA process, and then we podcasted about that and then when AI came out that we started using AI and talking about AI. So it’s really fun that we have this huge umbrella of things that we can talk about on the podcast and that has kept us interested as well as our listeners I think. Well let’s hear another comment from Wendy Adams, she says, “I’ve been researching my family since the mid nineties with a hacked together system, mostly chasing shiny records and documenting things that I remembered.

Diana (34m 49s):
Then in 2019 I stumbled across a Reddit post recommending Research Like a Pro. I bought the book, binged the podcast and started slowly working the methods into my process. The timing couldn’t have been better. I spent a good chunk of the pandemic breaking down longstanding brick walls and the RLP approach completely changed how I work. My research is more structured, disciplined and productive. Most importantly, it gave me confidence so much so that during a recent career pivot, I started a side business designing family trees and providing research, something I never would’ve felt ready to do without Nicole and Diana’s program. I love how approachable the Research Like a Pro process is.

Diana (35m 29s):
It’s not judgemental. It meets you right where you are as a genealogist and it’s genuinely encouraging. Thanks for all you do and congrats on 400 Episodes.” Well Thank you for those awesome comments. I love it. I love the idea that it gave Wendy confidence to start a career doing something that she loves. So that is so fun.

Nicole (35m 53s):
Yeah, that’s really cool. Designing family trees and providing research, that’s an artsy flare to it and I would love to see one of those sometime, Wendy. Well our next listener is Rachel, she says, “I have really enjoyed following your progress on identifying a father for Cynthia Dillard” and we should go back and see what’s the first episode where we actually talk about your research with Cynthia because it probably could be from like episode one or two, I don’t remember.

Diana (36m 20s):
Yeah, years ago.

Nicole (36m 21s):
Well she says, “this week’s podcast highlighting that phases and progress being made without solving the mystery is a great inspiration for my 14 day Research Like a Pro mini challenge objective to find the actions of a great uncle. In the past I might have abandoned the project unwritten, but this gave me the inspiration to keep documenting what I have found, what negative evidence I’m discovering, my hypothesis and where I might research further in the future.” So another one about making progress and writing up what we’ve found so far, even though we’re not finished. And that’s just such a good thing, a good habit to be in that we, that we write about what we’re researching.

Diana (36m 59s):
Well and I love how different listeners will tell us that they are following our research. And I think everybody who’s listening knows that I have Cynthia as my biggest brick wall and if I ever discover her origins, her father, we’re gonna have to have a party and everybody will be invited.

Nicole (37m 19s):
Yeah, it’ll be the 500th episode celebration.

Diana (37m 22s):
Oh my gosh, I hope it doesn’t take that long, but yeah, it might because she is a tough one.

Nicole (37m 26s):
That’s two years from now, so you’ve got time.

Diana (37m 30s):
Okay, there we go. Well, it’s fun to think of some takeaways from, you know, the Research Like a Pro process. And I think some of the things that we have heard and that we experience is this whole idea of overcoming overwhelm because there’s a method to put together those loose pieces of genealogy research and the benefit of writing also, you know, it’s just helping us all to be more productive and disciplined. And one of the listeners said, going From Searcher to Researcher, and we have definitely felt that. So even though we want genealogy to be fun, it’s really not fun to be frustrated and spinning our wheels.

Diana (38m 11s):
We have heard from people that have gained confidence going from intermediate to advanced professional genealogists. And of course, you know, a huge part of what we want to do is to get a fuller picture of our ancestors’ lives. We’ve had some fun on the podcast talking about our ancestors. Whenever I do one of the little snippets of an ancestor will talk about them and it’s just sometimes fun to tell a story from the ancestors.

Nicole (38m 40s):
Those 52 ancestor posts

Diana (38m 42s):
Yes, the 52 posts, which I haven’t done yet this year. I’ve gotta get going on those. And then also another great thing that we’re hearing is helping people stay motivated. You know, sometimes we get a little bit discouraged maybe, but if we hear some progress then that really helps. And that’s why we love our study groups and peer groups. Some of the peer groups in our study groups from years ago are still meeting weekly. And so, you know, we would encourage anyone to find a peer group and if you are part of our courses, we have a place where you can find a peer group that’s going on and be a part of that because that’s, it’s fun to realize you’re not researching in a vacuum there, there are other people trying to do the same thing you are doing.

Diana (39m 31s):
So we hope that, you know, all of you listening will share a podcast with someone who might not know about it so that more of our friends who are just getting started, or who are intermediate genealogists can gain some confidence and be more productive.

Nicole (39m 46s):
Yeah, I love hearing about people sharing about the podcast with their friends. So going through all of these fun comments from all of these listeners, it really made me stop and think about, you know, the purpose of, of what we do as genealogists and why we love family history research so much and why do we feel like the Research Like a Pro method is so important to learn. And of course it’s all the benefits we just listed, you know, staying focused and learning about our ancestors’ lives and, and that plus I was kind of brainstorming some of the purposes that family history research fill, that are so important to us as a genealogy community.

Nicole (40m 28s):
And of course for me a lot of it is making new discoveries. I just love the act of uncovering the truth and being able to establish reliable findings. And sometimes like we can look at family lore and either validate it or correct it. I love that aspect of it. And then the other part I love is, you know, with making discoveries, is rescuing ancestors from anonymity, and you know, remembering them. I don’t ever wanna feel like my fourth great-grandmother’s name is not known. I want to fill out each spot in my family tree as far as possible. So I just want to remember them and remember that they’re real people, not just names in a chart, but, but stories behind the names and understanding their historical context and social context, especially the women and the people who didn’t have children, like who don’t have any descendants to research them, you know, those collateral siblings of my ancestors and things like that, as well as enslaved individuals.

Nicole (41m 32s):
Whenever I come across somebody who’s enslaved, I, I feel like it’s important to rescue them from anonymity, so that they’re, they’re remembered as well. And I like that there’s different ways to do that now with FamilySearch and things. Another purpose of family history is connecting with the past. And I love how when I learn about the the past, it just helps in my daily life just knowing more about history to become like a more well-rounded person and deepen my understanding and specifically my family’s story. Like knowing how I got to where I am today gives me more gratitude and understanding of what difficult historical events and practices meant for the shaping of our history and our, wherever we live in our country or whatever.

Nicole (42m 20s):
And just knowing those difficult things my ancestors went through makes me feel like grateful for my present day comforts. And then also understanding that that there’s resilience built up in my family line over time that we have overcome challenging things, you know, in the past looking at some of my ancestors who were pioneers who, who took long journeys to get to a new place, that intergenerational identity that’s so important to giving us that feeling of groundedness. Like I have a value system that has come down through generations from my forebearers to overcome challenges. That’s such an important thing, especially for children and adolescents.

Nicole (43m 1s):
And then finally beyond, you know, making discoveries and connecting with the past, preserving our legacy for future generations through writing and creating written conclusions that can be shared with our family In the future. And I’ve always loved teaching my children about the past in a way that connects them personally to history by using our ancestors. And I think it’s really important to have that bonding across generations to be able to say your great-grandmother did this. And that’s really neat because you share DNA with her and you have some of the same features and talents and things that she has. So that continuity by making sure our ancestors are not forgotten, we say that my life and story also matter and will be preserved by those who come after me.

Nicole (43m 47s):
So it creates that cycle of remembrance that is so important. So it’s been fun to reflect on why we do family history as we’ve heard from all of you listeners. So thank you for sharing some of the purposes that you value in your family history and it was fun to think about the ones that we value as well.

Diana (44m 8s):
Well thanks for bringing all those up. I love that. And I don’t think any of us would be doing what we’re doing unless we really loved it because it’s pretty hard isn’t it, doing, doing the research and putting things together. But anyone I’ve ever talked to who loves genealogy and family history has a, a motivation from all those things that we’ve talked about. So that’s so great. Well, we are so thankful for every one of our listeners and we’re thankful for those people that wrote us something, you know, thank you. Those were just amazing comments and we hope that you’ll be with us for the next 400 episodes for the next seven years

Nicole (44m 55s):
And hopefully we’ll improve. You know, I always feel like I’m not very well spoken and we’re just kind of average people, but we really appreciate your kind comments and and for putting up with us and continuing to listen and keep trying to be better researchers along with us.

Diana (45m 13s):
Yes, absolutely. Well, thanks everyone for listening and we will talk to you next time. Bye-bye.

Nicole (45m 20s):
Bye. Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like a Pro and Research Like a Pro with DNA on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com/services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email inbox each Monday, subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket.com/newsletter. Please subscribe, rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.