Motivated Mondays

That heading is really just to get your attention because I would venture to say that many of us are the opposite of motivated on Mondays. We've got our coffee after climbing out of bed reluctantly and move about in a frenzy of unpreparedness to make it through the next five days with some of our brain cells intact. 

In our research we sometimes feel the same way. Even if you keep a research log like you are told is good practice, you may feel like nothing is productive. What if I told you that it's okay to repeat your research?  What if I told you that I will purposefully look through the same databases, the same papers and use the exact same terms over and over in a period of time? 

Listen, we're told to keep records so that we don't waste our time, but when the records are not easily found, or something is missing that you need, you HAVE to repeat searches until the info is found.  Don't get me wrong here. I want you to keep track of what you have looked at. I want you to move about the inter-web with purpose. But I also want you to double, or even triple check yourself and those databases.  Not every hour and not even every day. But every few weeks revisit some of that work and try again. 

I've been researching a project for a book for about 7 years now. One of the main reasons it isn't published is because when I go to review the information and organize it for print, I happen to go double check myself and find MORE information. As records are scanned and made available that means something we've already looked for could be missed if we do not repeat ourselves!

I encourage you to go back to some of your early research and see where there might be holes that were never located. You've grown as a researcher and the records have grown too! You might just find what you are looking for!

​Now get out there and Enjoy those Adventures in Genealogy!

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