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Sunday, January 25, 2009

Lessons Learned Sunday: Keeping Up with Correspondence

The other day I got a wake-up call. It came in the form of an e-mail from a distant cousin inquiring to find out whether I was still working on our common line, the Moores, and also asking for a current e-mail address for another distant cousin. It just so happened that I actually had started back to work on this line and was in the process of completing a compilation of the descendants of our common ancestor. I was working on the last group of these Moores, which consisted of the descendants of this gentleman’s (and the other cousin’s) grandfather. I realized I had really dropped the ball on this project. Not only should I have gotten in touch with these Moore cousins immediately, I should have been keeping in touch. For one thing, they can provide me with information on their lines. For another, the cousin who contacted me had changed addresses (and I had to scramble to find the other cousin’s addresses and figure out which one is still good). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, some of my cousins on this side who have been following this research are elderly, so I cannot take them for granted.

One of my mistakes was to underestimate these cousins’ level of interest in this research (turns out both are very interested). The other mistake, however, was letting my correspondence records fall into disarray. I know there are various systems for keeping track of correspondence and that many professional genealogists have some pretty sophisticated and complete systems. However, I believe that even the keen amateurs should have some sort of correspondence records system. For many researchers corresponding with family members, fellow researchers, experts in relevant fields, providers of services, etc. is a vital component of their research.

Instead of a single correspondence log, I keep separate logs in the front of the binder for each family and subject. This now includes a list of the e-mail address of my correspondents (and sometimes snail-mail address for those with whom I exchange hard copy materials as well as telephone numbers for those people with whom I have occasional “Texas telephone calls”), as well as a list of people that I want to contact at some point (mostly posters on genealogy discussion boards). It also has copies of a lot of my e-mail correspondence with them (sorry to those of you who believe in paperless offices – paranoia born of a long, pathetic history of losing e-mail that exists solely in electronic form has led to this state of affairs). What I need to add to these are copies of some of my own e-mails dealing with research; some of these e-mails, lost in the aforesaid pathetic history, could provide a lot of blog material with very little alteration, and being the lazy person I am, that thought really makes me cry. The other addition that is needed is an actual log of correspondence with dates. I could do this in purely chronological order, but I prefer to have a separate section for each correspondent. This would make it easier to notice when I have not corresponded with someone for a while. While this amount of detail might not be necessary for less-active family lines, I think it is essential for the major areas of research. And finally, make sure that main list of contacts is always fully up-to-date, which may include noting which e-mail addresses no longer work.

I hope to include “Lessons Learned Sunday” as a semi-regular feature on my blog. You will notice that I included my own experience (read: mistakes). That’s the idea. Since I have made so many mistakes in the course of my genealogy research, I figured these mistakes would provide plenty of fodder for blog articles and, I hope, help a few people.

13 comments:

  1. Thanks, Greta, for the reminder to keep organized. It is much needed.

    Lisa

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  2. It's sort of my manta every morning: "Must get organized, must get organized." And when one area gets organized, another succumbs to entropy.

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  3. Thanks for posting your lessons learned. It definitely motivates me.

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  4. Great idea for those lessons learned!! Mind if I steal the idea?

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  5. Amy, Thanks for the encouragement!

    Elise, Please - go right ahead. I've stolen several of your ideas already!

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  6. Keeping up with requests, correspondence and emails from inquiring cousins is one of my biggest challenges. There just aren't enough hours in the day even if I AM organized. You remind me to give it another shot, Greta!

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  7. Becky,

    The thing that drives me crazy with e-mail, etc. is that I'll know someone provided me with information or I am answering the same question - and I can't find the relevant e-mail. This happens so often, you'd think I'd learn.

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  8. Oops, Elyse, I just noticed that I misspelled your name; sorry, I really do know how to spell it! (That's why I shouldn't write anything late at night.)

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  9. Greta, what a wonderful idea, I would like to copy too if I may! I work full time and loose track of emails, phone calls, mail etc. it would be a great way to stay on top of it. For each log do you use a spreadsheet layout? I am going to make a log for blogs I look up quickly don't have time to read and want to go back to on certain subjects! Thank you! Thank you!

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  10. Thank you for your encouragement, Gini. I don't use an actual spreadsheet program, but I put it in table form in Word (I prefer the simplicity and speed of that form when I don't need to do linking, etc.). And now I am going to take your idea for keeping track of blog articles I want to return to - right now I just jot down notes on scraps of paper and throw them in my blog folder. Yours is a much better way!

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  11. Hi Greta, great article on keeping up with correspondence! I have run into this problem as well and added this to my goal of getting organized in 2009! I have a word doc with tables full of names and addresses and emails. I also have a column for their lineage summary. The last column of "notes" contains brief summaries of all correspondence and links to word documents that contain the text of the actual email sent or received. My tables are divided by direct line descendants, collateral lines, names give to me by others, names I wish to contact, and names of my DNA project. I also have a table of names of descendants I have not yet contacted. This seems to be working much better for me now and keeps me accountable!

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  12. Wow, Ginger, your system sounds fabulous. Maybe you could do a post about it with illustrations? (I'm always looking for better ideas in this area...)

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  13. Hi Greta, I already have posted about it. I have included a small version of it here

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