Free research logs that you want to print can be found in
more places than just familytreemagazine.com, you could try ancestry.com or
familysearch.org. Just use your favorite web search site and type in “free
genealogy research forms” and see what you find. Find a form you are
comfortable using. You could always create your own form but look at other
forms and make sure you are not forgetting to record anything important.
If you are trying to stay green, you could use your
computer, smartphone, tablet or iPad to record your research log. Just use a
simple word processing program to type in your efforts. I’m going to be using this blog when I find
time to actually do some research to record what I have been doing.
Another option might be just a simple notebook dedicated for
your genealogy research efforts. Start each page with the date, what your goals
are such as finding Great-Great-Grandpa John Thielke’s parent’s burial place.
Then start recording where you have looked, what you found. Perhaps you find
other information during your search and you want to come back later. You could
easily place a post-it-note flag on the page in your notebook. You could
highlight the text that you are flagging. When you find time to follow-up on
that flag, remove the flag from that page and of course start a new page with those
research notes efforts.
You might wonder “Why do I need to bother with all this
extra work?” You will appreciate being
able to go back and review your research efforts. First, it may prevent you
from repeating the same steps that resulted in no results. Let’s say that I was
unable to find John Thielke’s burial place, I could review where I have looked
and continue my efforts on another day, perhaps months later. 2nd,
it may help to look at your notes with fresh eyes. Also, what a wonderful gift
to give the next generation that continues your work, they will be able to
follow in your steps. This is a wonderful place to record websites you visited.
I know I have wanted to return to hidden treasurers and when I type in the same
phrase into the same search engine, I get different results and can’t find that
darn website again.
If you are researching a lot of branches, you might want to
create separate notebooks, one for your maternal line, another for your
paternal line, or even divide up based on Ancestral Surname. The inside cover
of the notebook would be a great place to list all co-lateral line surnames
that you might come across. If you just what one notebook; perhaps use
different color highlighters and highlight the top of the page with a color
that corresponds to the proper ancestral line. Such as pink for your maternal
mother’s line, and blue for your paternal father’s line, green for your
paternal mother’s line and yellow for your maternal father’s line. These colors
end up matching my filing folders where I file everything. Of course this is
another subject.
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