These Three Things

This Saturday evening, Randy Seaver asks:

1) Think of three things that you learned about Genealogy or Family History today.

2) Tell us about them in a blog post or a comment to this post.

I seem to always learn more than three things a day about genealogy so here are the ones foremost in my mind tonight:

1. There are too many acronyms in genealogy!

Or at least so many that they can overwhelm a newcomer! Even I get perplexed when someone uses terms - the one that got me today was BMD. Means "births, marriages and deaths" and is common among my UK genea-friends. Someone also added the aka which is "hatch, match and dispatch" which I thought was kind of funny.

I think a cheat sheet or a lookup with genealogy acronyms would be great and right now I am finding some great resources on The Internets but they are not as comprehensive or as organized as I'd like. Hmmmm - sounds like a new project . . .

2. It pays to research those in-laws and siblings on your family lines.

I learned that this week in my search for Catherine Sullivan my 3rd great-grandmother. I located her son Francis Dennis O'Keefe and realized that his son Carlton D. O'Keefe was the same Carlton I had been trying to match up with a set of parents for over a year. Very often we stop at our own direct ancestors and then go on to the next generation not realizing there is quite a bit of information to be found in those sibling and in-law lines!

3. Don't get overwhelmed - get organized!

As Vera Charles said in the movie Auntie Mame, "Let's get organized! Now what day is it and what time is it?" It helps to have a research plan to keep you focused - but don't forget there are times when you need some leeway especially when you know you are about to break down that brick wall! A solid plan and well organized files will help you find what you need not only in terms of your tools for research but the data itself!