Let's Get (Re) Started - Part II

Why oh why didn't I start off with a genealogy database?

To be fair, I still do not believe that a genealogist (especially a budding one) needs to spend lots of hard earned money on fancy equipment to get the job done. My dear friend Lisa Buckner at Roam Your Roots amazed me when she told me she didn't subscribe to Ancestry- that she only used their tree building software and hints to guide her to what she needed from Family Search.. where she could get most of the same records for free. She's a smart cookie.

Because Ancestry feels like it is the gold standard of all genealogy research, I have spent A LOT of money on subscriptions to the site. I love the ease of use and the record selection but honestly, Ancestry has been there for my rookie stages and I think it's time to up the ante. 

Last year (after two years of being interested in genealogy) I finally decided to do so. Although my research was pretty well flushed out, I felt like I had records scattered all over the place- some on my computer, some on newspapers.com, some on Ancestry, some on Family Search. I had no where to consolidate and I felt like I would have to start over anyway to make sure everything I had was clean and well thought out. I had fallen into the messy web of not fully citing sources and not keeping up record organization (which I had definitely been warned about but is SO easy to do when your light interest and quick clicking turns into a more refined hobby and you suddenly realize you should probably take it more seriously). So I researched databases that I had heard about on Podcasts, Youtube videos and on Facebook groups. RootsMagic seemed a popular choice and also had the ability to link to Ancestry AND Family Search which are my two most used databases. For $30 I decided to download and give it a try. This has been so helpful to me! What do I love about it?

1. Security- I know that my tree is MINE. You should NOT keep all your research on something like Family Search- that is a massive shared tree and anyone has the ability to change information. Regardless of that, I feel very secure knowing that my tree will be on my computer (and backed up after each session into Dropbox) should something happen to Ancestry or any other web tree sites. 

2. Source Citation- When I researched before I got my database, I found it way too tempting to just attach things to my tree or download them with some generic information without going into depth with citing the source. It is a LOT of time and effort to try to write a source citation yourself for every document. RootsMagic has taken the advice from the cannon book Evidence Explained to do step by step source citation for each fact you list. Luckily, it also saves the source to be reused if needed for a different fact. Do I spend a lot of my time lately trying to fill in the fields of my source citations? Yes. Is it fun? No. Am I looking forward to the day that I can stop moving sources over to my database and get back to actual searching for records? HELL yes. But now, I have them. Done correctly. That gives me so much peace of mind. Someday, when my descendants are checking out my research, they won't struggle to find  out what a source is for, or even where it might be. 

3. Customization- I haven't done too much yet- I'm still "playing" with my new database. But I do know that you can incorporate your own filing/labeling system into the database. You can color code, you can change the order in which you put in dates, etc. Can't wait to get more into this once I master the basics more. 

4. NO "Bright Shiny Objects"- As Lisa Louise Cook from Genealogy Gems would call them, Bright Shiny Objects (BSO's) are a major distraction factor for me. I could have tried to clean up my tree on Ancestry and just kept that as my main database...but there's too much fun stuff on there. I can't focus on source citations or data extraction when there are shaking leaves and DNA matches and new cousin messages!! I am weak. I know. 

5. Bells and Whistles - These aren't silly additions. They are things that are totally helping me out. I can do a web search from inside my RootsMagic browser, I can print off just about anything I could possibly want, heck, I can even get a full photo scrapbook put together (with captions!) with a click of a button. Research logs, notes sections, to-do lists, soundex calculating, mapping, spell check (and problem check in general), gazetteers searching, automated reports (such as Family Trees, Group Sheets, Source lists, narrative reports, timelines, etc) is all included. This is fun. My boyfriend would make fun of me for saying it but this is really, really fun to play with. 

I KNOW people smarter and more organized than me (I'm a right brained Sagittarius- god help me) would be able to do without this database. They are resourceful and savvy and I admire them. For me, I think RootsMagic will really bring my research to the next level. 

The only additional piece of documentation I would like to bring to my genealogy would be keeping a completed book for my main family members. Someday I would love to buy an IPad and download all the pages from Carly Morgan at Family Tree Notebooks who is seriously my hero. I love the idea of extracting data like she does and putting together something that anyone can look through and appreciate. 

What do you think of Genealogy software? What do you use to keep things in order? How do you think you could improve on your system? 

P.S. I hope you have kept safe during the pandemic.  

Love always, stay safe and healthy, happy hunting!

Morgan