Take Note

OfficeMax, Garden City, Cranston, RI, August, 2015

Take Note
and rethink your original work...

Sometimes you have to be pushy about your genealogy research and get your point across in a BIG way. Since I have been sick for over a month, no amount of caffeine can make me a high energy genealogist for the upcoming holiday season. But, I have been able to do some research, make some project plans and do a little scanning. I have done a LOT of thinking about what I want to accomplish starting in January. 

I think I am better off planning instead of trying to write blog posts in November and December because I know you have not got time to read them. Am I right?

Sometimes a display like this one can catch your attention and get your brain moving in the right direction. I didn't buy any of these big note pads but they would be great for charting out a project or working out complex family relationships. As I was shopping, I took this quick photo to remind me. Do you do that?

Slowing down and taking a look at research you have not added to in years can give you new insight. Let me give you an example. My mother told me where she went to high school and then she told me that her only 17 months younger brother went to Dean Academy in Franklin, MA. 

I ASSUMED she meant for his post high school education since today this school that still exists as a two year post high school institution. 

I was WRONG. What she was telling me is that he boarded at an academy for his high school years instead of going to a local public school as she did. I only realized this when I found his yearbook in the Ancestry collection of yearbooks and then returned to the Web page for the school and read the history. 

I didn't need coffee to wake me up and tell me how wrong I was when I made an assumption. Don't let this happen to you! I will kick off  2016 with a report of what I found and how it fits in the total picture of my uncle's life.