Making the Most of Your Genealogy Research Time

This article was also posted on Family Tree Magazine.

Both experienced genealogists and casual hobbyists want to know as much as possible about their ancestors. While there are many discoveries to make, deciding to finish your entire family tree or write a book-length narrative about an ancestor are vague goals, especially considering that you have more ancestors the further back you go. To make your research time the most productive, you should narrow your focus.

That said, when you are excited to research everything you can about your family history, you might struggle to zero in on a specific goal. Below are some tips to help guide you.

Setting Research Objectives

What research objective should you set? That depends on which ancestor(s) you want to learn about and what you want to know about them.

A research goal to extend a particular line as far back as possible would require you to move on to the next generation as soon as you have sufficient proof of the preceding generation. Similarly, if you wanted to learn as much as possible about a particular ancestor, you would likely spend countless hours searching for records without any real sense of direction.

To choose a research objective, think of an ancestor or ancestral family that sparks your curiosity. Next, determine what is already known and what is not known. This includes ensuring that any information claimed about this ancestor or family has supporting documentation. That way, you don’t have to spend time combing through information already familiar to you.

If you have already researched the selected ancestor or family, you may want to dig up your old research. If you collaborated with another relative to research the ancestor, you may wish to contact them about what’s already been done. You can also look up previously done research on an ancestor by searching for them in FamilySearch Family Tree (seen below), Ancestry Public Member Trees and Wiki Tree.

As you examine what is known about the ancestor, you will be able to figure out what you still need to learn about them. It’s also possible that every document that answers a question produces several more questions, so searching for additional documentation to answer those questions can also be a research objective.

How to Stay Focused

It is too easy to fall down a rabbit hole as you research. Each answer found usually raises new questions. It can be tempting to put aside your original research objective to pursue the answers to these new questions. However, doing this may lead you in multiple directions without finding an answer to your original question.

If you focus solely on your research question, you are more likely to find the answer. When you find a document that provides more questions than answers, note those questions for later. Any of them can be your primary objective for a future project.

In a recent client project, I began searching for land records. Shortly thereafter, I realized that probate records might also answer the question. It would have been easy to abandon land records for probate records, especially since I hadn’t yet found any. Instead, I stuck to land records and found land records for the ancestor. Had I divided my time between the two, I’d have found nothing. I noted down for the client to research probate records later.

How to Plan Effectively

Making a genealogy research plan can save you time. Once you identify your objective, list the record types that will give you the information you want to find. A more complicated problem may also require you to list record types that will provide clues to other record types.

Be sure to consider what record types are available for when and where your ancestors lived. If you are familiar with researching in that time and place, you already know what records are available and how to access them. If you are unfamiliar with that, you may need to do some background research to learn what records to search.

You may pursue this background research in several places. You use the search functions on sites like the FamilySearch or MyHeritage wikis, or the Family History Guide. You can look up videos on YouTube. You can look up books on Google Books or at your local library. How involved you get with your background research is up to you. The more you know about the time and place, the more effective your research will be.

The planning and background research may seem to delay you getting into the real research, but it will save time in the long run. It takes less time to learn what year birth registrations began than to search for the birth certificate of your ancestor who was born before that date. It takes less time to search for substitute records knowing that the courthouse was destroyed than to search for non-existent court records.

I once made a plan for New Jersey research. I listed newspapers from the 1750s in the plan and then discovered that New Jersey’s first newspaper began publication in the late 1770s. I would have wasted so much time had I conducted that research before making that discovery.

Time Management

Planning your research and focusing on your objectives will go a long way toward helping you get more out of your time researching your genealogy. The time-saving tips below will also help you avoid spending unnecessary time on your research.