Make a Focus Plan

While balancing work, family, school, and other service opportunities, we oftentimes feel we have limited room for genealogy.

Do family history in wisdom and order. Don’t run faster than you have strength. Be diligent, but don’t expect to fill in every gap in family history by yourself, all done today. Rather, donate some of your time consistently to this work.

"What should I do next?" is a common refrain from people with their 4-generations already mostly found and as they branch out (pun intended) to other parts of their relatives.

You are no doubt already good at planning and doing in other parts of your life, so let’s apply that skill to family history work too.

Your Who-What-When-Where PLAN

So to get the most out of the short time blocks we do allocate for family history, I recommend having a brief plan.

Not a long, complicated plan. Rather, just the current small gap you want to work on. The other gaps will still be there after you make progress on this gap. It is your current ONE priority for FH work.

Planning FH effort has a few specific requirements:

Identify the GOAL or GAP for only ONE (1) person that you want to solve (WHO).
- GAP: What’s missing that you want to find out (WHAT)?
  - What is the problem you want to solve?
  - Writing the gap down can help when you get lost among the research rabbit holes. Write it down to help focus on right thing.
  - How will you know you solved the GAP?

Review known details (What do you already know?)

Evaluate what’s already known about your ONE (1) person.

(WHEN) In what time period did they live?

Tip	Estimate initially to bound your search (i.e. if child born in 1860, then they were most likely born before 1844, assuming they were at least 16-yrs old at child’s birth. As you find out more, replace the estimates.)

(WHERE) Which geographic regions are in (no point in looking beyond the mark)?
(WHERE) Where will you store records you find so you can find it again? (local hard drive (backed up), cloud storage (dropbox, google drive), sites(familysearch, ancestry, etc.))
What documentation has already been collected?
How thoroughly was each record already been studied?
What is the historical context?

What leads can you follow?
- Is anyone still alive that might have this information? (easiest approach when it applies)
- Are the algorithm hints really for your ancestor?
(WHY) Can you clearly state your rationale and point to the sources that lead to your conclusions? Did you add that rationale to the database or Family Search when you made the change?

Any constraints? (records burned for that time, no census records available, etc.)
Adjust from Prior Sessions
- What has previously worked well for you in earlier Family History sessions?
- How well did you provide a source citation to help others (or your future self) find the record 6 months from now?
- What did not work well for you in previous Family History sessions? How can you adjust?
Does your plan focus on this session’s GAP (supports your goal)?

Tip	Consider this approach or substitute an alternate approach that you have refined in your own life experiences.

Apply Plan-Do-Check-Adjust (PDCA) on a personal Family History Kanban board.

Background: The PDCA is also known as the Deming Cycle, or the Shewart cylce. It traces back to a 1920s expert Walter Shewart. If you want more, ask Google.

A personal Kanban board is a way to visualize and track knowledge work, what’s TO-DO, what’s IN-PROGRESS, and what’s DONE over time. Some people prefer research logs. Pick what works for you. Use your tracking as a way to celebrate small findings in amily History work (Yay!). Kanban boards are excellent tools for multiple people collaborate on projects, and filling family history gaps are projects too.

Easy to Start

Use a cork board, or white board, a piece of paper, or a Trello board (trello. Divide it into three columns, (1) To Do, (2) In-Progress, and (3) Done.

Figure 1. Simple Family History Kanban Board

To Do  |  Work In-Progress  |  Done
-------|--------------------|-------
       |                    |
       |                    |
       |                    |
       |                    |

Write the current gap & short plan on a sticky note or 3X5 card and stick it in the To-Do column.

Caution

Keep the scope of the task on the card to a size that will fit into 30-60 minute time slots. If the task is too big, break it up onto multiple cards.

When your FH times arrives, check your FH Kanban To Do column and pull the top card (work one at a time) in the To-Do column into the Work In-Progress column.

Modern software engineers use boards like this and work in multiple iterations of small amounts of effort (called agile "timeboxes") to work small scope problems, to deliver small chunks of progress. We too can plan small bites of Family History work to make progress.

WHEN: What 30-60 min of the week can and will you commit to work your family history using this small plan? Allocate the a set time (30-60 min) now, put it in your calendar tool or app, and plan around it.

WHAT: What is the gap for now? For this session’s ONE (1) person what is the gap? What information has already been gathered?

WHO: Who is associated with the gap? Pick only ONE (1) person for this session.

WHY: Family history is simply problem solving in action for your relatives. Aim for small working sessions.

Updated on 01 Jan 0001