Attempting to Take Control of my Genealogical Research

Earlier this year I considered making a list of New Year’s resolutions; however, I decided not to do this.  The reason being is that they’re essentially goals that you set for yourself.  My husband had recently read a book by Scott Adams and in the book Scott said that “goals are for losers and systems are for winners.”  This outlook of Scott Adams changed my viewpoint on goals and resolutions so I decided to try to go about planning and organizing my life or at least one aspect of my life differently.

So instead of creating actual resolutions for myself I made a list of Genealogy Goals for 2015.  Yes, I know, goals are for losers; however, I did include an item about how I can try to take control of my research.  Basically, I want to have a system for how I deal with the stuff that I find when I’m researching.

The taking control of my research idea is from the January 2015 issue of the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society’s newsletter, Westward Into Nebraska.  They had an article by Lisa Alzo that was taken from her blog.  I read the article and was inspired to “take control of my research!” This is what got me thinking of how to create a system for how I process the information I find after searching for it. 

It did take me some time because it’s now March and I haven’t really implemented my new found system.  I’ve taken some steps to organize it and manage it, such as I came up with the idea to add a source citation column to my research log.  Another column I created was one for Source Analysis.  These are two of the steps I took to get control of it, because Lisa’s article got me thinking about what bad habits I have in regards to my research.  As I sat and thought about it, I realized that my bad genealogy habits are not writing down the source citations right away for the things I find.  I do put the information almost immediately into my research log, and will mention where I found the stuff.  But after I’ve finished that task, no formal citation is ever written for the source of the information I’ve perhaps spent weeks, months, or years thinking about how to find, searching for it, and then perhaps finding a small piece to the puzzle.  The other bad habit I have with my research is never stopping to analyze the source and writing about my research findings formally, instead of just writing about some of the happenings in this blog.

Once I realized what these bad habits were, I needed to come up with a way to deal with them and stop my bad habits.  Yes, I’ve included source citations in my genealogy software program for the different life events of my ancestors, and some of these sources are duplicated on my WeRelate page.  However, I didn’t have anything written down in one central place for all of my sources.  So that’s what led me to create columns for citations and analysis in my research log, so that everything would be in one place and that I wouldn’t be able to walk away once I’d entered in finding a particular piece of information or having visited a website and coming up empty.  The fact that I needed to cite the source would be staring me at in the face, so I would likely feel compelled to write a citation for the information or lack thereof.

While I was at the RootsTech/FGS conference I overheard some people near my booth talking about the Evidentia program.  It’s for managing the sources that you’ve accumulated.  I was intrigued by it, but as it was extremely busy in the exhibit hall I didn’t have much time to go in search of their booth and find out more. 

However, soon after hearing about the software, the guy from the company stopped by my booth early one morning before the hall opened to ask me a question about something in regards to the conference.  I saw that he was with the Evidentia company and asked him about the program.  He gave me some information and later when one of my colleagues watched the booth, I went over to learn more.  I did buy the software and have begun using it, but still want to finish my project of sourcing everything that’s in my research log.  I’ll write more about what progress I’m making with citing my sources, how my system is working out for me, and perhaps how the Evidentia program is working out for me.

Census Research Update

Back in August I wrote about extracting census data in an effort to learn more about my great, great grandfather, John Washington Womble.  As a correction to the previous post, the Civil Districts I extracted the census data from were the 12th and 13th from the 1870 census and then the 11th Civil District from the 1880 census.  I’m curious to learn where exactly in Hardeman County, Tennessee he lived and anything else this information can tell me about his life there.

This has been a long process and I’m not finished yet, and probably haven’t even reached the tip of the iceberg.  I spent the fall going through deed indices; yes some may say that wasn’t truly a great starting point because indices don’t always contain a thorough listing of everyone in a particular book.  However, I needed a place to start and knew going in that I would need to consult the deed books themselves to truly cover all of my bases.

I even ordered a roll of microfilm of surveys for Hardeman and made several copies of surveys that were located either entirely or partially in Civil District 12, range 1, section 2 of the 10th Surveyor’s District.  This was the limit I set for what I would search in an effort to learn where his land was located, and yes I know I’m leaving out the 13th Civil District—I will cover that.

After collecting this information, which I knew wasn’t enough, I began to plat out the surveys I’d copied.  I tried using a free online program and considered purchasing an expensive program to help me plat all of these surveys.  Instead, I took the hard road and platted them by hand using graph paper, ruler, pencil, and at times a protractor when necessary.

This was time consuming, but interesting because I became drawn into what I believe may be the terrain of his neighborhood.  My thought is that John Washington Womble likely lived in the vicinity of the Hatchie River.  I could be wrong; as I haven’t finished platting all of the surveys I collected and haven’t finished my search of the properties that surrounded his.

I tried comparing my plats to the present day Hardeman County, Tennessee on Googlemaps, but still could never completely connect them enough to tie the plats with the images I found online.

While creating the plats, I found mention of a property that always seemed to be referred to in similar with sometimes varying terms:  Entry No. 953, for 2000 acres, in the name of Thomas Claiborn & others.  I first noticed this description in a land transfer from Aby Grantham to John J Womble.

The last name Claiborne is significant because it may be connected to John Washington Womble’s 2nd wife Rhoda Caroline Richardson.  Additionally, some of the property description of the land purchased by John J Womble seemed to mirror a neighboring property that coincidentally was owned by John Washington Womble, who I believe, was John J. Womble’s uncle.

I had the opportunity to visit the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah this past February when I worked the NGS booth at the RootsTech/FGS conference.  There I did a page by page search through deed book W looking for land transactions that were in the area I’d cordoned off in my mind-Civil District 12, range 1, section 2 of the 10th Surveyor’s District.  Again I saw mentioned in various deeds the infamous, Entry No. 953, for 2000 acres, in the name of Thomas Claiborn & others and made copies of those.  Hopefully, I can use that plat as an anchor in which to join all the other “puzzle pieces” of plats that I’ve already created or will create and be able to fit John Washington Womble’s plat in amongst them.

Upon returning to Virginia, I’ve ordered microfilm from the FHL of deed books W and X and once it arrives plan to continue my page by page search for properties within Civil District 12, range 1, section 2 of the 10th Surveyor’s District.

My plan is that once I’ve gathered together those plats for the Civil District 12 that I’ll then work on locating plats for the 13th Civil District and then be able to put John Washington Womble’s 1870’s neighborhood together.