RLP 72: Getting Things Done Part 2 – Clarify

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 72: Getting Things Done part 2 – Clarify. 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 creators of the Amazon bestselling book, Research Like a Pro a Genealogists Guide. I’m Nicole co-host of the podcast join Diana and me as we discuss how to stay organized, make progress in our research and solve difficult cases. Let’s go.

Nicole (46s):
Hi everyone. And welcome to the show. I’m Nicole Dyer, co-host of The Research Like a Pro Genealogy Podcast. I’m here with accredited genealogists, Diana Elder. Hi Diana, how’s your research coming?

Diana (58s):
It’s going great. We’ve been working on the DNA research through the Research Like a Pro with DNA study group, and I’m making really good progress on my Benjamin Cox project. It’s been really fun to find a bunch of shared matches between me and other cousins, and I’m working on a Maguire type chart to show all the different connections and I have learned a lot, and I’m pretty excited about putting this together in a final proof argument. So what about you? What are you doing with DNA?

Nicole (1m 27s):
Well, I think in a previous episode, I mentioned that I wanted to try Connected DNA and I did. I ordered a sibling graph from Shelly Crawford down in Australia, and it came back and it was enormously helpful. It showed a huge cluster that was connected to a known cluster with a lot of connections because the network graph shows dots for people and then connections, which are lines, to other people that they are shared matched with. And this was a huge hint that if I could just identify the common ancestor of this new cluster that I hadn’t noticed before, then I could find the parents of my research subject that I’ve been searching for forever. And so I figured out where all their trees intersected and found this new couple that I can now research and see if they are the parents.

Nicole (2m 14s):
And it’s looking really good. So I’m excited.

Diana (2m 16s):
Wow. That’s so exciting. And you showed me your graph, which was absolutely amazing.

Nicole (2m 21s):
Yes. And, you know, I should share with all of our listeners that if you would like to try Connected DNA, Shelly gave me a coupon code to share with all of you and the coupon code is FamilyLocket15. And if you use that, you can get 15% off any of her network graphs. And I’ll put a link to her website in the show notes, it’s called Connected DNA. And so I need to write a blog post about that too, because it really is so helpful. All right, well, let’s do our listeners’ spotlight today. It’s from Ricky D and he said, “great method, great podcast. I discovered your podcast a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been catching up on the episodes ever since.

Nicole (3m 3s):
It’s full of great tips and hints And I love the conversational style between Nicole and Diana. Their research method is wonderful and very practical as well. I also enjoyed the recent podcasts on archives. The microfilm, books, vertical files, and other archives at my local library helped me get started on my journey. And now I can’t wait to revisit it. My only complaint, I didn’t have this a decade ago when I started my research, it would have saved me a lot of headaches and duplication of effort.” And then Ricky has a question. “My biggest concern and question has always been focused. My cousins have traced my maternal grandfather’s line all the way back to England, including over a thousand descendants. But a lot of their research is word of mouth and undocumented.

Nicole (3m 47s):
I’ve traced and documented my maternal grandmother’s line back about five generations, but I’ve focused just on ancestors, not siblings, aunts, and uncles, children, so it’s really sparse. Then up until recently, I didn’t even know my paternal great-grandfather’s name. So do I help my cousins document and update that tree, dig deeper into my grandmother’s side, or delve into the mysteries of my father’s family? Any advice?”

Diana (4m 16s):
Well, this week we are talking all about this type of problem with knowing what to do and what to focus on with so many different types of research projects. So if you were listening last week, we focused on capturing all of these types of projects in our family history and genealogy world that are on our mind that we want to do. And hopefully you took the opportunity all week long to capture that, and you might have a really long list. In fact, I’d be surprised if you didn’t. Every genealogist that I talked to has more things than they think they can do in their lifetime. So you might have come up with ideas for research projects, or papers to organize, education to pursue, histories to compile and more.

Diana (4m 57s):
So now you’ve got this big long list, and it sounds like our listener, Ricky has lots of ideas in a list too, what do you do? So what you have to start with is thinking broadly. You might have come up with some ideas and you’ve been energized and you wanted to start doing something right away, but take the time to step back and think what is the big picture? Look at your list of projects broadly and consider some things, think about how committed you are to the project. Is this really something you should be doing? Or would this be a project that someone else in the family could do better? So we have to think about this. Many of our family history projects can be shared. Who says that we have to do everything?

Diana (5m 39s):
So a few years ago, I wanted to upload to FamilySearch the audio I had of my dad talking all about his growing up years during the Dust Bowl and depression in Oklahoma. And I was completely overwhelmed at the thought of breaking up the large file into smaller pieces, and then doing the upload to FamilySearch. But I broached the subject with my son and he found the solution and soon he did the entire project. I was so excited that I didn’t have to do that project. It was fabulous. And then I had another project which was scanning all of our old family photos. I had diligently put those in albums from the time of our marriage all the way through the present. So I had two entire shelves of my bookcase filled with these albums.

Diana (6m 22s):
And of course I was delaying on that project because that did not sound very fun to me. Well, providentially, my daughter-in-law offered to scan all of those photos because she wanted to have those photos of her husband, my son’s growing up years. And about the same time, we were able to borrow a special scanner that has very high powered capabilities scanning a ton of pictures per minute. And so my daughter-in-law scanned all of my photo albums within a few weeks, and today I am absolutely thrilled that that project has done. So my big tip here is to think about these projects and think about if someone else in the family would really be better off doing that.

Diana (7m 5s):
Maybe they’re not researchers, so they could take on the scanning, or maybe they are really interested in some little portion of their research and they could do that. And if we want to get the next generation interested in family history, maybe we need to look at the unique talents of our grandchildren, our children, and give them something that’s really suited just to them.

Nicole (7m 27s):
Well, that’s a really good point because I’ve been working on ideas for doing that and trying to share these projects with others, to get them involved and also to take them off my plate. And it’s funny that you mentioned my brother, your son, who’s good with technology because I just asked him yesterday or a couple of days ago, if he would take, do you remember those skits that we did? And the video from the reunion a couple of years ago, where everyone in the family did a family history skit? Yes. Well, So I, I found that video and it was just a huge long video and I sent it to him on Google photos and just said, Hey, can you split this up into each family’s individual skit for me?

Nicole (8m 8s):
And I wasn’t sure if he would have time or if he’d want to do it, but I was just hoping and crossing my fingers. And he sent it back within like six hours– all completed. And every video is now just two or three minutes long, much more easy to share. I was thinking it would be fun to share them in the Facebook group where all of the cousins are and stuff. And so it was great. It really is amazing how, when we ask for help, sometimes people are totally willing to just do it. Cause it was something that he’s good at.

Diana (8m 36s):
That is fabulous. I’m so excited to go look at those again. And I agree, we have to break up our things into small bites. Nobody wants to watch an hour long video, but we can watch a five minute one.

Nicole (8m 48s):
Right! This is the exact topic that I’m speaking about at RootsTech with Jana Greenhalgh and Olivia. And so the title of our class is, Involving the Whole Family in Telling Your Family Story. So it should be really fun because we’re talking about delegating and asking other family members to help us with these projects. And it really is to their benefit too, because as we all know, learning about our family and the past is a wonderful and strengthening activity to do. And so spreading the love to those around us, who maybe don’t do it all the time like us, but can still get involved is a good thing to do.

Diana (9m 27s):
That is a wonderful example. I love that. So kind of to recap, we have our big long list. We’re in the middle of clarifying. So we’re thinking broadly, we’re looking at the big picture thinking of if we have to do a project or if we could delegate it. Now, the next thing we can think of is, do we need to do this project right now? Or would it be better for the future? We all know that we have certain projects that really need to take priority such as interviewing an elderly relative, collecting DNA samples from the oldest generation, or maybe making that book for a 50th wedding anniversary, or planning the next family reunion.

Diana (10m 7s):
Some of these things are on our plate and we know we’ve got to get those done at a certain time, but there are other projects such as writing the big family history book that maybe we’re not ready to do. And that can be put off for a few years until the research has actually complete. So a simple way to do this is to review your list of projects and rate them on a scale from one to 10, with one being due immediately and 10 to do some date and then reorder your list. And that will just put it right there in front of you about what project you should start now. So the third thing to think about is what is your purpose in doing each project and what outcome you envision. Really thinking about the purpose will make a difference.

Diana (10m 49s):
If you’re thinking in the back of your mind you want to do that family history book, think about what your purpose is. Is it to preserve the years of research for posterity? Is it to correct a myth about the family? Is it to publish? So think about why you really want to do something. Are you hopeful that learning to use DNA in your research will break down a brick wall? So many different purposes we have in the things we do. And some things we never stopped to think about those, determining the true purpose for each project and the hope for our outcome will help you clarify what you truly want to accomplish with your family history.

Nicole (11m 27s):
Wow, that’s really good. I think it’s sometimes hard to really think about all the things on our list like this, but so helpful and considering the purpose of why I want to do it and could really help like determine when to do it. Like you said, because maybe I need to do something else first before I tackle that one. Like, if I’m unorganized with my papers, I’m not going to be able to solve that brick wall problem because I’m not even going to know what I have about the problem. And I’ve done that before where I started researching a project and then I’ve gone, in my mind, I’ve been thinking like, oh, I thought I had a document about that. And then I’ll go search through all my files and they’ll find the document that has the answer or a clue.

Nicole (12m 7s):
So yeah, it can be really helpful to examine the purpose. And sometimes if we don’t realize that the purpose behind filing and getting our papers organized is to help us solve brick walls, then we might do things out of order.

Diana (12m 21s):
That’s a great idea. And I think also if we really look at the purpose, we may decide that some of our projects aren’t needful, maybe we are looking at something. And when we think about the purpose, we realize, oh, I really don’t need to do that project. I thought I did, but I don’t need to. So it really can help us to evaluate and examine some of these basic things in regards to our genealogy and family history.

Nicole (12m 43s):
That’s true. All right. So what’s next?

Diana (12m 46s):
Well, next we have to think deep. So we were thinking broad, looking at all the projects, thinking of when we should do them, if there’s a purpose for them. Now we have to go deep. So this is once we have our prioritized list of projects, we go deep on project number one, because we have determined that is what needs to be done first. So you review your purpose in tackling the project and the outcome you envisioned. Now you do some brainstorming to get all of your ideas down on paper, on a whiteboard, on a napkin, in a restaurant, you know, wherever you are filling in the mood to do this brainstorming. I like to use my whiteboard for brainstorming and I’ve talked about using that to get ideas down for genealogy research projects.

Diana (13m 32s):
The fun thing is after you’ve done this big brainstorming on a big whiteboard, you can take a picture of it and then save the picture. So when you erase it and use it for another project, you’d still have captured your brainstormed ideas. So I’m just going to use an example of one of my projects that’s kind of been on my mind for a few years. I was at a yard sale years ago and found this really neat sisters album. And it’s a beautiful album and it has places to put pictures and write thoughts. And I only have one sister so I thought how neat it would be if I filled this up with pictures of us together through the years and different shared experiences and give that to her for her birthday some year.

Diana (14m 17s):
Well, every year when it comes around, I never get that project done. The beautiful albums sits on my shelf, just waiting for me to work on that. So I decided to brainstorm this project and think of all the things that needed to be done so that I could come up with a next action and actually bring this project to fruition. So it was really energizing to draw a big circle and put in the inside of that sister’s book and then draw lines out from an all the different things I needed to think and do.

Nicole (14m 47s):
I love that? And you’re right, that thinking about everything that you want to do for the project, all the little steps that need to be done can help you clarify all the things that you can do and fit in within those little cracks of time that you have like maybe sitting down and watching a show that you’re not that into, but you want to be there watching the show with the family. You could also have your laptop and just be like finding some pictures on Google photos of you two and putting them into an album.

Diana (15m 13s):
Exactly. Right. So after you’ve done this brainstorming phase, then we have to take some time to organize the project. Now I had my big mind map on the whiteboard, my brainstorm, and then that’s exactly what I did. I determined some tasks. So I decided I needed to gather the photos and stories and to choose how to organize the book. I had to get the photos printed because this is a physical book and to put it together and then I wanted to digitize it because I wanted to have copy for myself after I gave it to her. So I decided my next action was to gather the photos and put into one digital file folder. So now I can actually schedule that next action on my calendar and get started on this project instead of just looking at that book on my shelf and thinking, I need to do that, someday.

Nicole (16m 1s):
Oh, good. It’s nice to have a prioritized list. And I guess this really is similar to what we do in research planning. Isn’t it?

Diana (16m 9s):
Yeah, it absolutely is. There’s so many parallels to getting thoughts into focus, figuring out what to do.

Nicole (16m 17s):
Yes. So I guess the first step in research planning would be like thinking broadly and coming up with all kinds of things that we could do to search on an objective. And then when you think deeply about it and organize it, you put it into a prioritized list about which records to check first. So it’s very similar. That’s fun.

Diana (16m 37s):
Absolutely. So let’s just finish up with an example of how I did a project from start to finish. And the project was a jean quilt. My dad passed away in 2011, as you remember. And he wore these really distinctive types of blue jeans and he had this special kind of a button down shirt that was always either some kind of stripes or checks and they’re always in like blues and greens and reds. And mostly they were all similar because I gave them all to him for his birthday and Christmas and I, I just liked the certain type of shirt that I always gave him. And he liked it too, cause he always wore it.

Diana (17m 17s):
So when he passed away, my sister and I decided it would be really neat to make a quilt. We were daddy’s girls and we just missed him terribly. We wanted a quilt that we could curl up in and feel closer to him. Now this was a really big project. My sister and I both worked full time. We lived in different states. How are we going to ever get this done? Well, we did some brainstorming and organizing and I had planned a trip to Idaho to visit my mother. And I knew that while I was there, this would be a great time to work together on this project. So she collected all the jeans and shirts. She knew of a quilt shop that had a variety of neat fabrics we could use for the back and for the binding.

Diana (17m 58s):
And we decided we could do this over this weekend. And when I got to Idaho, we pulled out the jeans and the shirts. We designed a simple quilt block. We cut and sewed and completed all the blocks. So now what are we going to do? I know that a lot of you listening, have probably half finished projects sitting in your closets, where you get excited and you get started, and then it gets put on the shelf. We didn’t want that happening. We really wanted to make sure that we finished this. So we went to the quilt shop and we had envisioned using something that would pull together my dad’s cowboy persona. He loved cowboy movies, cowboy books. He was a cowboy, you know, that was just him.

Diana (18m 39s):
So we went to the fabric store and we found this perfect print that had horses, cowboy, hats, spurs. My sister chose it in a black background. I chose it in red and I left Idaho with my quilt blocks then and the fabric to bring it all together, purchased with all that momentum spurring me on. I continued with the one next action after another, until I’d finished the quilt and even made pillows with the leftovers for each of my children for Christmas presents. So even though that was in a really busy time of my life and I didn’t know how I would ever get this project completed, just by doing one next action after another, I always was able to make progress until it was finished. And you were the recipient of one of my pillows.

Nicole (19m 20s):
Thank you for making those. It was so fun to get that and to have a little piece of grandpa, and that can be a tricky type of project to get done because it is time-consuming to sit down and work on a physical product like that. So good job. And I think the key, like you said, is making a priority out of it and then just doing the next action. I’m guessing you didn’t do it all in one sitting. Did you just set aside some time every day?

Diana (19m 49s):
Yeah, I think it took about a week to get it finished.

Nicole (19m 52s):
Did you have a deadline for it? I feel like it was given at Christmas. Right?

Diana (19m 57s):
The pillows were for Christmas. The quilt was just for me. I just came home from Idaho and just wanted to get it done. I didn’t want it hanging over my head. I felt like if I didn’t do it then with the momentum, I maybe wouldn’t do it. So I think that’s another tip that once you’re going on a project, if you can keep going, that will be very helpful. If you lose your enthusiasm. Sometimes it’s hard to get back to it.

Nicole (20m 20s):
I agree. I really like finishing something when I’m in that mindset. And sometimes that’s really challenging to do because I’ll get interrupted, like anyone with children around. Well, let’s give our challenge to the listeners. So last week we challenged you to make a list of all the things that were in your mind about different projects you wanted to do and just capture all of those this next month. Why don’t you clarify each project on the list that you made and consider your commitment to the project? Think about the purpose and the outcome of the project. And then once you’ve done that, hopefully that gives you enough information to prioritize the projects and choose the next top project and go deep on it and brainstorm the ideas for everything you want to do within that project and get it organized and think of the next action needed to make that project a reality.

Nicole (21m 14s):
So when we come back to this topic in a future episode, we will be talking about specific ways to organize our projects so that they stay out of our head and in a system that we trust. And that will help us to have more stress free productivity, like the book says.

Diana (21m 31s):
All right. Well, I think I’m energized to go do a little bit more clarifying projects. Like I said, this is always a continual process that we have to work on. As new things come into our life, we’ve got to sit down and be thinking, okay, what’s priority for today this week, this month.

Nicole (21m 47s):
All right, everyone. We’ll talk to you again next week. Have a good week. Bye bye

Diana (21m 51s):
Bye-bye.

Nicole (21m 52s):
Thank you for listening to Research Like a Pro with Diana Elder, accredited genealogy professional and Nicole Dyer. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your own genealogy research. If you like what you heard, please leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher or visit our website, FamilyLocket.com to contact us. You can find our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist’s Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.