I'm leaving Legacy Family Tree for the cloud

I have started the genealogy do-over over and over and I sputter out on the data entry portion after a few months, in large part, because working with Legacy Family Tree as my primary system of record just isn't working for me. That conclusion took me about five years to come to, in large part because Legacy Family Tree does so many things well.   I have loved working with the software.  But at the end of the day, it makes my data a complete silo, which can be a positive for some folks, I'm sure.  But for me, it's just not working.

I need the ability to share my data.  And if I'm going to have the ability to share it with family and friends, I would prefer that where I share it already have an active user base so that I can have easier interactions with other researchers about my data.  So, while I considered buying a domain and setting up a website for my data to make it shareable with family and friends or people I correspond with, that first, is a whole lot of work and second, it wouldn't have the community of researchers around it that I'd like for my data to have.

I need the ability to work on my data somewhere other than my desk.  Legacy Family Tree, for all of it's wonderful features, is a tether.  I've gone so far as putting my data onto a NAS (network attached storage device... like a hard drive that anyone on my wireless network at home can access) and installing the app on both my laptop and my desktop, which gives me the ability to work with it from anywhere inside my home on one of those devices.  But I salivate over the ability to do the same work on any device or from any pace, just like I can with my genealogy data that is NOT stored in Legacy... like photos and documents I store in Evernote.

Genealogy Do-Over Year 2 or 3 and Some Lessons Learned

Photo : My 2,987,000th great grandmother / ..Russ.. / CC 2.0

I'm participating in the Genealogy Do Over again this year.  This is my second year doing the actual event and my third year after starting over on my own personal data.  My method of participation is not by the book but I find that the event is helpful because I've got the encouragement and support of hundreds of other participants and I get lots of good ideas from it.

If the goal were to map my ancestry back to the dinosaurs, the do-over would put me "way behind.  It might "take me forever" to re-do "my 15 years of pain staking research".  But the object, for me, of genealogy, is discovery.  I love to learn new stuff about my ancestors.  I get a bounce in my step when I drop another tiny piece into the puzzle of me.  The do-over has just made that all the more enjoyable.

Outside of my own research skills, so much has changed in 15 years.  The first generation that I researched was my grandparents.  When I started this research, most of the information on them was still restricted because it was so soon after their deaths.  Going back to where I started 15 years later has resulted in a whole new wealth of public information about them.

15ish years ago, when I started my own research, it was the year 2000 (Y2k!).  I was hanging on to my Windows 97 install because Windows ME sucked so bad.  The world around me was just starting to get it's internet feet under it.  Banking was still completely paper based, you had to actually drive to the grocery store to get groceries and to do genealogy, you still had to travel to the location you wanted records on and like... actually... physically view them.

Genealogy Do-Over - Week Something - Research Checklist

Photo : Checklist / Nemo / Public Domain

Week... something.  It is a week happening during the genealogy Do-Over in which I'm doing Genealogy Do-Over things a bit behind the weekly schedule.  At my own turtle pace.  Not a turtle who has seen food though - just a regular, ambling turtle.

Part of this process for me has been watching stuff that other people post and learning new tricks and techniques.  One such new (to me) technique is the genealogy research checklist.  This helped me solve three problems :

Tracking the Negatives

 I have always kept person-centric notes about the research in which I found something interesting - but I have never tracked what I didn't find.  Or where I searched that I didn't find anything.  While I don't know of any issues that this definitely caused, thinking about it, I can see how likely it was that I was re-searching for evidence that wasn't there.

I was also, most likely missing vital clues about an individual resulting from the absence of of a record in a particular place.  For instance, this evening, I ran through my checklist and searched each census in which my grandfather would have appeared.  I noticed that while he shows up on the census with his parents when he was 4 years old, and I can find a census for his parents and his younger sibling ten years later - he isn't on it.  This is the first time I've noticed that.  Most likely because I was simply looking for his name and when I couldn't find it on a census, probably put it off for another day, assuming I just needed to look harder or differently.  When I wrote down that I found him on the 1920 census and could not check off the 1930 census, this caused me to look for his parents, which I found - and realized the clue that had been staring me in the face the whole time.

Genealogy Do-Over - Oops I cheated

Photo : Break the Rules / chickspirit / CC 2.0

So, I spent last night cheating on the genealogy do-over.  Like all night, I absolutely shamelessly cheated.  A lot.  We weren't supposed to start researching at all.  Instead, I entered myself and my father and researched his parents and siblings.  At the time, it felt like 90% itch to get moving but in retrospect, in the bright sunshine of a new day, given that I am the victor, I get to write that history any way I want, right?

So, I say it was all in the name of science!  I, in fact, spent my time observing what I was doing and how - and came up with some new insight into doing it right.  I have new golden rules, some new Evernote processes and some new knowledge of Legacy Family Tree.

Genealogy Do-Over

Photo : Nagasaki Bomb / public domain

I've decided  to start from scratch with a genealogy do-over.  Here's why :

1) I started poking at genealogy about fifteen years ago and since then have amassed a hodge podge of records, notes and tree data, some of which originated before I knew that a lot of what one can find online in other trees is hogwash.  I know my knowledge level will continue to evolve, but OHMYGAWSH, my processes could sure use a logical, fresh perspective makeover.  Fifteen years is a lot of change and due to the nature of research documentation, incremental change is not always the way to go.  Thus the hodge podge.
2) These days, I am chasing down so many ancestor stories at once that I get this flood of information that trickles through various stages of research but most often, never makes it to my tree software.
3) Geneaology, for me, has evolved from 'interesting thing I do sometimes' to 'immersive hobby that I am borderline obsessed by'.  Just like a career musician might have the best of the best in instruments, it's time I have the best of the best in well oiled genealogy machines.  I want to re-imagine what I'm doing in a way that keeps up with new technology and takes full advantage of what's available these days.
4) There is no better time than now, while there are so many people doing it!  I'm excited to have the pointers and support from everyone who's doing it along with me.  Really, having the community has made all the difference.

Week one is about laying groundwork for where to put genealogy stuff and how to put it there.  It looks like this :

• Setting Previous Research Aside
• Preparing to Research
• Establishing Base Practices and Guidelines