What kind of Genealogy Researcher are you?

I realized that it appears I am a gatherer. I go around researching my family and gather information and documents. What I am not doing, is taking the time to update my genealogy software database with the information that I have been gathering.

So if I don’t add the new facts and people into my tree, are they really related to me? Well of course they are, however, how would I know? 

Plus, I have found that I am gathering the same information that I gathered two or more years ago.

Why? Well, back in 2000 when I realized that I should be citing all my sources, I also developed a rule that I would not put any new fact or person in my tree that I wasn’t willing to cite the source at the same time. I didn’t want to add anymore non-sourced facts into my tree. My other goal was to source the facts that have no sources as I was researching that person or branch of the family.

This method does work well, until about 2015 when I was elected to be my local DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) Registrar. I found myself spending so much time on my perspectives’ applications that I didn’t have time to do my own research. Or should I say, inputting my own research. I was researching my family as a break from doing applications. I gather information and copied it into a “Working” directory, so I could find it again. There it would sit.

This summer, my big goal is to go and clean out my “Working” directory. To make matter’s worst; I have several “Working” Directories. I have some on various cloud services, along with my laptop. I am travelling, thus I am unsure if I have any on my desktop. I would be surprise if I didn’t.

So now as I go through my laptop "Working" directory (the smallest folder), I am bringing up my genealogy software. I check to see if this information has already been cited in my database. Then I check my well organized “Genealogy” folder where I store a copy of my documents and see if I have a copy of the information there. Also, I am fixing my naming conventions in the folder where I am checking for the document. I am making sure they are all named consistently. It is so much easier to find items when I use the same format. Plus I am checking my source citation for the fact too. Are they consistent with others, I am fixing those earlier ones, where information wasn't quite complete. I am also, making sure that every citation has a document in my “Genealogy” folder.

If you are curious about my “Genealogy” folder, check out my old blog post “Organize your Computer Files” http://simplygenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/01/.

This process might seem boring, however I am doing a little new research on the one person that I am revisiting based on my “Working” folder. I also check the working folder for all items that pertain to this same person. I am pretty good on my names, thus I usually have all the documents for one person sorted by their name, since this is what I usually name them in my “Working” folder.

So back to work I go, heigh ho! What kind of Genealogy Researcher are you?