The Heel of Achilles

Overcoming my greatest weakness

If you have been doing Genealogy for any length of time, you have encountered “other researchers” who either impressed and inspired you or who (to put it politely) …didn’t.

I hope to be an inspiration, so I come to you twice a week with my strengths - enthusiasm, curiosity, a willingness to dig, and a fondness for storytelling.

But there is at least one major thing that I don’t do that keeps me firmly in the amateur camp: I have never kept a research log.

I have no good excuse. There are dozens of excellent resources for learning how to do this. (If you Google “how do I keep a genealogy research log” they aren’t easy to miss.) Every book, lesson, how-to, “getting started” guide, etc. on the subject of genealogy tells you that this is a crucial practice. I just …haven’t done it.

It’s not like me to shy away from an opportunity to wield my Excel skills or build a bunch of Google Sheets. I love tedious documentation and paper trails. But it is in my nature to be easily distracted - and while I have managed to engrain other habits into my research methods, “documenting where I have already looked for information” has never been one of those habits.

This weakness usually manifests as a nagging certainty that I have looked at a source before. My recent essay series on James Callin’s service in the Revolutionary War prompted me to revisit a number of sources to see if I could find land records to support the claim that he (and his brother) took bounty land in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, after the war.

Deborah Carl

happened to publish an excellent post on the subject - “Slow Down and Get to Know Your Records” - which directed me to some resources on FamilySearch I don’t think I have checked before.

But I don’t actually know whether I’ve checked them or not, because I have no research log.

As I mentioned in my series, several of my cousins have gone on this quest before. I know I have sent requests to the National Archives, and I have looked for online sources that might tell me if/when anyone with my surname filed a claim for land or submitted a pension file for their service in the Continental Army. But without a research log, I really can’t tell which sources I have seen before, and I don’t have any record of what I looked for before - which might tell me which sources I should revisit.

This isn’t just a time-saver. I don’t mind covering ground that I’ve covered before in my search for new information - but there are situations where not having a record of where I looked and what I did or did not find undercuts the rigor of my research. I can say things like “no land records have been found” but that statement has no real value because even I can’t tell you where I’ve looked or whether I was looking for the right information at the time.

Me, finding out that I’d already looked at a source a dozen times. (from Wikipedia)

Clearly, I already know what I need to do. The question is, will I adopt the Method, or will I continue with the Madness?

I suspect I will try - but for now, my tent remains firmly pitched in Amateur camp.

…because I just know you’ve got a system!