Taming The Runaway Brain

I think maybe I am overwhelmed. Sometimes I feel like I do things over and over and I think I take good notes and I put everything in RM4. I don't have the best filing system but I am not disorganized either, I can find everything. One thing that I know I am struggling with and my common sense just jumped out with an answer the other day. My DAR line is documented by my mothers cousin. While I have the family history she wrote many years ago, I have never seen any of the documentation. Recently I found my Edwards line by a website (a great website!) done by someone else but still I have no documentation. So while it is "done", to me it is not "done". So I was putting a lot of thought into "should I redo research?" Well duh, yes! What if I find a new clue or new information and how would I know if it is new or not never having seen documentation! And, we should always double check our resources, etc.

So clearly I do know what I should be doing.. But maybe my brain is having problems in knowing where to start. And, as you can see, this is frustrating me because I am watching all my subscriptions ticking away, haha. Too, I am missing the boat on a lot of things. I do the primary look ups, chase down a lead with excitement when I have one but then I seem to drop the ball. I see all these fantastic Genealogist's uncovering all these documents I never get around looking for. So clearly my research skills have not rounded out yet.

I need a master checklist of all the things I can do to find an ancestor that I can use. I have one but can't say I like it that much so I will keep searching for something that covers everything I want with some minor tweaking of my own. Sometimes I think there is just too much information out there and I feel I am on overload. So when I feel like this about anything, back to basics seems to work for me.

So, I am allowing myself this down time but! it will not be wasted time. I have assigned myself three jobs. One, to put all my folder files into notebooks like DearMyrtle does on her January 2009 checklist. Two, I am going to get all my surnames and regions on mail lists. I have about 6 or 7 but I can do much better. Three, I am going to get all the forums I watch on my RSS feed in Bloglines.

It's a start.. I crave to research, I see so much potential in my family tree and so much missing information. So once I do these tasks, I guess I will pick a family line and start from scratch.  In the mean time I will continue to write a blog when topics interest me or I feel I have something to share.  The blog prompts are a fantastic thing.

I read about all these great collections being scanned for the world to see.. how do people get jobs like that! Lol.

If you read all the way through this.. thank you for listening to me ramble!