Charting your information

One thing that's always helped me, ever since I first started doing homework in schoool, is to write things down. I know that in today's day and age, we are more apt to be digitally inclined. I too am more apt to make a note in my digital files than to take out a piece of paper.

There are just some things that I just can't get my head around unless I see it in a charted form. As much as I'd like to tell you that there is a chart for everything out there that you are researching, there just isn't.

I've really sometimes just needed a certain piece of info to let me know what it is that I am confused about. I did this recently trying to figure out just where it is that my missing family person went to. I made a simple chart with their names down the left and the census year across the top. I put an X in the boxes that I know people were either not born or already dead. I then filled in the city, county and state in each box for their census year.

This gave me a clear picture of who was where and when. If indeed he followed family he could be in one of two places that I had not looked. While I've yet to find him, at least I have a theory to go on.

So when you are out there, make sure that if you just are not getting it, feel free to jot it down on paper. Then,