Types of Narratives: Timelines

Here at The Family Yarn we encourage you to pursue Narrative Genealogy – recording in written form the unique story of your family so that future generations can read with interest about where they came from.

Narratives can take a number of forms, and throughout January, we’re talking about different types of narratives and how they can contribute to your family’s story. Catch up with our previous posts on autobiography & memoir, journals & diaries, and vignettes.

While not narratives per se, timelines can be invaluable in helping to craft a narrative for an individual or family.

Webinar Wednesday Preview: Thomas MacEntee's Genealogy Do-Over

I have been an occasional attendee of Legacy's Family Tree Webinar series for a few years now. I don't often get to watch live, though, as they tend to broadcast in the middle of the workday. Thankfully, the past episodes are available for a short time for free in their archives, so I can usually pick it up the following weekend.

The next webinar in the series is being presented by Thomas MacEntee, always an engaging speaker. Thomas will be speaking this Wednesday on his Genealogy Do-Over project, which I signed on to participate in back at the first of the year. I've been reading the weekly emails, and I support the spirit of the project, but I'm moving ahead at my own pace with my 6x6 Challenge.

If you're new to genealogy (or if you've been at it for a while and need a fresh set of eyes on your material), I suggest you check out Thomas' webinar and his initial blog post about the project. So far, his weekly challenges have been a good reminder on the proper techniques of laying out a family tree, and if you're just starting, I highly suggest you do it right!

See you on Wednesday!

A Fresh Page

Happy New Year! It's bright and sunny (but cold) here in Ohio - a great day for making a fresh start.

I posted a couple weeks back about my plan to rebuild my Legacy Family Tree family file using a 6x6 approach. At just about the same time, Thomas MacEntee proposed a Genealogy Do-Over - setting aside everything and starting fresh with documentation and proper citation. It's great to know that I'm not alone in wanting to clean up my files.


My primary objectives in participating in the Do-Over are:

1. Document and properly cite all of the information in my tree, starting with my kids and working back. I'm tired of having wobbly, spindly branches on my family tree because the trunk is entirely composed of "because I read it somewhere" statements.
2. Tame the mess of loose papers in my files. I have a standardized form for documenting information; now I need to put it into practice across the board.
3. Learn how to effectively use a research log. Like others I've seen talking about this challenge, I too often run off down rabbit trails, resulting in poorly documented and repetitive research.

I'm excited to see where this year takes me in genealogy. This is the most intentional I've ever been in my 20+ years of family history - it could be great

What are your genealogical plans for the New Year?

The 6x6 Challenge

Over the summer, our family computer gave up the ghost. We took it to a friend for a post-mortem – as it turns out, the motherboard was fried and would be prohibitively costly to replace (it was an all-in-one unit, convenient but difficult to tinker with). He was able to extract our files from the hard drive though, which was a blessing, since our backups are not as frequent as they should be.

On that hard drive, amongst family photos and random documents, resides the majority of my digital genealogy files. We haven’t yet gotten our files back (major family issues on our friend’s part = us not pressing a relatively minor issue), and while I do have some older backups on an external hard drive, said drive has been MIA since our cross-town move back in May.

Thankfully I still have three boxes of paper files, as well as some off-site storage. I am viewing this temporary misplacement of data as an opportunity to rebuild my genealogy database from the ground up, with a particular emphasis on citing information as properly as I can muster. It’s a daunting task, though, and I will need a solid plan to maintain momentum as I go.