Creating a Research Plan with Sort Your Story
Working through genealogical research often requires us to stop and examine what we have, where it came from, and where we need to go from here. Sometimes the information creates a brick wall that we cannot seem to get around or over. At these times it is important to go step by step through our research and create a new plan. Sort Your Story can help you create a research plan for either an individual or a family.
What should be in a research plan?
- A summary of your research problem.
- The information you know and where it was obtained.
- A list of the information you would like to know.
- A list of where you might obtain that information.
Individual
Open the Sort Your Story Profiler and then the file for the individual for which you are having issues.
Add a category called Misc. Documents. Title this “Research Plan.”
Go to the notes section and create a research plan based on the information you have gathered for this individual and the information you wish to find. Save the file.
Family
Open the Sort Your Story Profiler and create a new file. Rather than putting in an individual, just enter a surname and then in the first name field, enter the names of both parents of this family.
Add a category called Misc. Documents. Title this “Research Plan.”
Go to the notes section and create a research plan based on the information you have gathered for this family and the information you wish to find. Save the file. To create a plan based on the family you will have to examine all the profiles you created for the individuals within that family. Or you can add the documents relating to that family in this profile.
Use Sort Your Story to create a research plan for you family. Let us know how it worked for you in the comment section.
© 2012 Lorel Kapke, 19201 Sonoma Hwy. #341, Sonoma, CA 95476-5413
Thrifty Thursday – Free Videos from Sort Your Story
Do you use Sort Your Story for organizing your genealogical materials? Are you not yet using Sort Your Story? Would you like to know a little more about the program features?
Sort Your Story introduces two new videos for your training enjoyment.
Sort Your Story Introduction Tutorial
Sort Your Story and Pedigree Chart
Have you watched the videos? What did you think? How did they help you?
© 2012 Lorel Kapke, 19201 Sonoma Hwy. #341, Sonoma, CA 95476-5413
Thrifty Thursday – Free Sort Your Story Videos
Sort Your Story will soon be releasing new Quicktime Tutorials. The Sort Your Story Quicktime Tutorials “a step by step walk through” is a very simple organizational tool to use! The First Sort Your Story Quicktime Tutorial walks through the Sort Your Story Organizational System. The second, How to use Sort Your Story Folders. The third, How to use the Profiler and more to follow…..
Stay tuned for more information. And stay up to date with Sort Your Story Events by Liking us on FaceBook.
© 2012 Lorel Kapke, 19201 Sonoma Hwy. #341, Sonoma, CA 95476-5413
Wisdom Wednesday – More on Identifying your Ancestors
Last week I talked about the importance of identifying people in your photographs whether they exist in an album, loose laying around the house, or on your computer in a file folder or Sort Your Story folders. This week I will expand a bit on this idea.
A goal I suggested for 2012 was to identify all the people in your photographs. Have you started this project? How far have you gotten? Do you have people you cannot identify? Here are some suggestions on ways to possibly solve that problem.
- Create a site on Google’s Picasa like the Italians in Chicago project has done. Notice how the blurb about the collection asks for people to leave comments about the photographs. You can do the same thing with yours. It is up to you whether you want to make this photo collection public or private to only those with the URL.
- Post photos on your blog with as much information as you can provide. Maybe you know the photograph was in an album given to you by your grandmother Rose Smith. So, one can theorize that those photos must be of her family or her husband’s family and not one of your other lines. That helps narrow down who some of the individuals may be.
- Print your Sort Your Story work as a book and show that book to all your relatives when you gather together. You may be surprised at how many photos are identified and how many stories you will hear. Bring paper and pencil with to record it all!
- Post your photos on FaceBook or Google+. Social networking sites can hook you up with potential family members so it never hurts to try this route.
My goal for you this week is to make a list of all upcoming family gatherings to which you could bring your photographs. Birthday parties, weddings, miscellaneous parties, even wakes and funerals. I have taken photo albums to wakes and everyone sits around to look through them, talk about not only the deceased but the rest of the family. Many stories are shared. Don’t rule out the sad events in your life that bring people together. Those are the times when people may be more willing to open up about things.
And as always, enter your information into Sort Your Story so your family history is more complete!
© 2012 Lorel Kapke, 19201 Sonoma Hwy. #341, Sonoma, CA 95476-5413
