Genealogy Do-Over - To Do or Not To Do
In the last few days, the Genealogy Do-Over by Thomas MacEntee has hit the online Genealogy Community by storm. His December 15, 2014 announcement that he intends to start a Genealogy Do-Over on January 2, 2015 has gone viral. He has invited everyone to join him (for free) for the ride.
Since making the announcement, The Genealogy Do-Over Facebook page has over 900 members (as of December 29th, 2014). You can find the facebook page here. You can tell by the facebook posts that this idea has a large appeal.
Okay, so I agree with Thomas….and have some of the same issues. When I started out, I got ‘click happy’ in ancestry.com and added family and hints without documenting the sources. Although I’ve been cleaning it up (for years now), I think most of us have to admit that we’ve made mistakes and didn’t document sources even when we checked them. Yes, I’m guilty. But do I really want to start all over?
Well, the short answer is YES! I want to get on the bandwagon. I want my tree to be perfect! But the long answer is, do I really want to spend time to re-do so much of my work that’s already been done? Is perfect a realistic goal?
Genealogy bloggers have been blogging about this for days. Many are so excited and getting their house in order to ‘start over’. Another blogger simply states they are not doing a do-over, they’ve spent too much time on what they have to re-do it.
At this point, this is what I have decided. I am going to follow this group and start my own do-over. I am confident it will be a great learning experience. Here are a few of the things I hope to accomplish before starting:
- Evaluate my desktop Genealogy Software (currently using Family Tree Maker Mac 2).
- Learn and use Evernote.
- Get my files, including paper and digital, better organized.
- Develop and use tracking sheets.
- Give Evidentia a try. (Evidentia is a software program that assists you in evaluating your sources).
In the meantime, I am appreciating all the excitement, information sharing and positive feel of the group.
Let the fun begin.