Documentation Matters

A Stubborn Teenager and Her Unnecessary Brick Wall

When I first started researching, I was told to keep a research log, and I thought, Yeah, but this is boring. It takes so much time, and it takes away from researching.  Researching was the fun part for me.  Back then, we literally had to load rolls of microfilm onto a film reader and wind through them page by page looking for records.  I loved it.  I thought it was cool, even though it took a lot of time.

That shows you how much I knew—or, more accurately, how much I didn’t know.  Because I wasn’t writing anything down, I ended up searching for and finding the same document four times in one week.  The first time I repeated the search and found the same document, I didn’t think anything of it.  The next time I saw the very same document, I thought, This is the weirdest coincidence.  By the fourth time, even I had to admit it wasn’t a coincidence. I had goofed up.  I just didn’t particularly want to admit it.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to change my mind.  Over the next six or eight months, I repeated the same mistake probably half a dozen times.  Sometimes I searched and found something twice;  other times, two or three times.  My stubbornness was really starting to show. I was not going to slow down and write a research log because, as far as I was concerned, I was on a roll.  Then I hit one of my first brick walls.

It wasn’t an especially difficult brick wall.  The real problem was that I hadn’t kept a research log.  I couldn’t find this individual, and it didn’t make sense.  This person should have been there, and I was convinced I had searched every possible record.

I was still in my teens, so I went to a mentor of mine who was a professional genealogist.  “I’ve searched everything. It’s not there. Where else can I go?” I told him.

“What do you mean you’ve searched everything?”

“I’ve searched all the records that are available.”

“So what records have you searched?”

“Well, I’ve searched them all.”

“Yeah, but what records did you search?”

I named the ones I could remember off the top of my head.  He mentioned a couple more, and I said, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve already searched those.”

Then he asked, “Well, where’s your log?”

“I don’t keep a log of things I haven’t found.”

“Then how do you know you’ve actually searched there?  How do you know when you searched it?”

“It doesn’t matter when I searched it if I’ve already done it.  I need to know what else to search or where else I can go.”

“I can’t help you until you actually write down where you’ve been.”

And then he stopped helping me.

For the next three weeks, I’d go up to him and say, “I need help.”

“Where’s your research log?”

“I don’t have one.  I told you,  I don’t keep track of things that are negative.”

“Well, then I can’t help you.”

And he’d turn around and help someone else.

I was furious.  He had never refused to help me before, and I couldn’t believe he was treating me this way.  Admittedly, he was the one who had told me repeatedly that keeping a research log was important.  I just thought he was an old fuddy-duddy who liked paperwork.  And, of course, my teenage brain was much smarter than that.  Fine.  I would prove him wrong.  I knew what I was talking about, and he didn’t.

I sat down at a desk, pulled out a piece of paper, and wrote down everything I could remember searching.  I wasn’t going to make an official research log.  I was just going to write down what I’d done, hand it to him, and he was going to have to accept it.

I took my list up to the counter and said, “These are the things I’ve searched.”

“What were the results of each of them?”

“There was nothing there.”

“What do you mean there was nothing there?  What did you search?  Did you search the census by Soundex?  By last name?  What towns did you search?”

I didn’t know.

“Then you need to search it.”

“But I’ve already done it.”

“But it’s not on your research log.”

“But I did do it.”

“If you have no evidence of it, it is as if you didn’t do it.  Go do it and come back.”

This went on until I had written down the answers to all of his questions.  I went back and forth for another two or three weeks, recreating searches and filling in the gaps.

I know this sounds crazy, but by the time I finished, he really was busy helping someone else at the desk.  I was determined not to have him turn me away again, so I sat down with my list and went through everything one more time, making sure there were no blank spaces he could use to send me off searching for another week.  And remember, this wasn’t some elaborate research log.  It was a piece of notepaper.  All I’d done was write down what I’d searched and what the outcome had been.

As I went through the list, I realized there were two records I should have searched—but hadn’t written down.  Immediately, my brain said, Of course I searched those.  Why wouldn’t I have?

But my mentor was busy at the desk, and I knew exactly what would happen if I showed him two blank spaces.  He’d tell me to search them, and I wasn’t about to spend another week being sent on what I was sure was a pointless search.  So while he was busy, I went and searched the two records I had obviously already searched.

Except I hadn’t.

The first one turned up nothing.  I wrote that down.  Then I searched the second one—and there it was.  The information I’d been looking for.

I wrote FOUND IT, circled it, marched up to the desk, slapped my research log down in front of him, and announced, “I found it without your help.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yep.”

At the time, I was completely satisfied.  See?  He couldn’t say anything.  I’d found it without his help.

Looking back, I can practically hear the sarcasm in his “Oh, really?”  Uh-huh. You didn’t need my help at all.  That man must have had more patience than just about anyone I’ve ever known during the four years he mentored me.

I will always be grateful for the lessons he taught me, and one of the most important was to keep a research log.  After all, I may have been the one who got to write FOUND IT, circle it, and slap that piece of paper down on his desk—but the research log was what finally showed me where I hadn’t looked.

I think beginners resist documentation for many of the same reasons I did.  We think it’s going to take forever.  It does take a little extra time—there’s no doubt about that—but I also thought it was going to be far more complicated than it actually was.

I thought I needed to create some long, detailed source record for every single thing I searched.  Back then, even gathering the source information could mean scrolling all the way to the beginning or end of a roll of microfilm to find it.  Today, that information is often available with the click of a button.

So documentation can feel like it’s taking time away from the part of genealogy we actually want to do.  It doesn’t seem fun, and sourcing can feel difficult.  But the research log that finally broke through my brick wall wasn’t complicated at all.  It was a piece of notepaper.

What Does It Mean to Document Your Research?

Documentation is the record I keep of my research—what I plan to search, what I actually searched, what I found or didn’t find, and enough information to help me find it again.

Sourcing is recording where a particular piece of information or evidence came from so that I—or someone else—can identify and find that source again.

The two are closely connected, but throughout this article I’m going to use the word documentation because I’m talking about more than the sources I find.  I’m also talking about the research itself: what I searched, what happened, and even the searches that turned up nothing.

There are genealogists who keep very detailed source information.  I’m not one of them.  Sourcing has always been the bane of my existence.  It drives me crazy.

That’s one reason I like to keep documentation simple.  For me, a research log is a practical way to keep track of the entire process.  It can certainly be more detailed than that, but it doesn’t have to be complicated to be useful.

Start With a Research Question

Before I start researching, I need to know what question I’m trying to answer.  I start with what I know, then look at the blank spaces in my pedigree chart or family group record.  Those blank spaces help me decide what I want to find out.

The question could be, Where did this person live?  When were they born?  How old were they when they died?  It can be any question that fills a gap in what I know.

And that gap doesn’t have to be a missing name or date.  Maybe I’ve found all the major vital records, but there’s a 30-year stretch of someone’s life that I know nothing about.  Where were they during those 30 years?  What were they doing?

Whatever the gap is, I turn it into a question.  That’s where I start.

Write Down What You Plan to Search

Once I have my research question, I create a plan.  I ask myself, What records might contain the information I’m looking for?  Then, before I start searching, I write down every record I can think of that might help answer the question.  Each one gets its own line on my research log.

Suppose my question is, When did this couple get married?  What records might help me answer that?  A marriage record is an obvious choice, but some census records might tell me how long they had been married.  Other records may contain clues as well.  I write down whatever records I think might help.

And you may miss some.  That’s okay.

If you’ve only been researching for six months, maybe the only records you know about are birth, marriage, and death records and census records.  If three of those might help answer your question, write down those three.  You don’t have to know every record that exists before you can plan your research.   Start with what you know.  You will learn more as you gain experience.

Then I work my plan.  If the first thing I’ve written down is a marriage record, but I don’t know where the couple was married, I have another question to answer: Where might that marriage have taken place?  From there, I can find out what records exist for that place, whether they’re indexed, and where I can search them.

Work Through Your Research Plan

Suppose you find a record set containing marriages from the county where you think the couple married, and it covers the years you need. Great. That’s one of the things you’ve already written down on your research log as something you plan to search.

Now you actually search it.  Then you continue working through your research plan, one search at a time.

Record What You Found – Even if you Found Nothing

As you work your plan, you also turn that plan into a record of the research you’ve actually done.  After each search, go back to your research log and write down what happened.

It may not answer your research question, but that doesn’t mean the search wasn’t useful.

Maybe you searched an index and found ten possible matches.  You looked at all ten records and came up with bupkis.  Nothing.  None of them matched your person.  Write that down.

Or maybe nine were wrong, but the tenth looked like your person.  Write down what you found.  Maybe it was a certificate, or maybe all you found was an index entry that appears to match.  Whatever the result was, document it on your research log.

This was one of the things I resisted when I first started.  Writing everything down was boring enough.  I decided that if I didn’t find anything, there was no reason to record it.  Why would I write down nothing?  I thought that was dumb and boring, so I didn’t do it.

Eventually, I learned that nothing is still a result.  If I searched a record set and didn’t find my person, I need to know that just as much as I need to know when I found something.

Keep It Simple

If you’re just starting out, grab a research log.  And if you don’t have one, grab a piece of paper.  Write down your question, the things you think might help you answer it, and then what happened when you searched them.  It really can be that simple.

A research log can be as complicated as you want it to be.  Some genealogists record a tremendous amount of information.  When I first started, I didn’t. I wrote down the record set I searched and what the outcome was.  Eventually, I started adding things like the microfilm number because it made the record easier to find again.

If documentation is difficult for you, start simple.  Write down the date, what record set you searched, and the result.  That’s enough to get started.

If you want to add more, you can.  Where did you find the record set?  If you found something useful, did you save a copy?  Where did you save it?  You can add whatever information will help you find the record or recreate the search later.

But don’t make documentation so complicated that you don’t do it at all.  A simple research log is better than no research log.  You can always add more detail as you become comfortable with it.

What If You Haven’t Documented Your Previous Research?

Maybe you’ve already been researching for years without documenting everything you’ve done.  The thought of going back and recreating all of it can be overwhelming.

Don’t.

Don’t go back and try to recreate every search you’ve ever done.  Start right where you are, with the research question you’re working on now.

Pull out a research log, an Excel spreadsheet, or even a piece of paper and write down what you remember doing.  What records do you remember searching?  What do you remember the results being?  I would make a small notation next to those entries—maybe an M for memory—so you know you didn’t document those searches at the time.  You’re recording what you remember, not claiming that your memory is necessarily correct.

Then look at what you’ve written down and ask, What should I search next?  Add that to your research log and continue from there.

If you’re stuck and can’t figure out where to go next, that’s when you may need to go back and recreate some of those searches you’re remembering.  And yes, it can be frustrating.  You’re going to think, Why am I doing this?  I already did this before.  I know.  I’ve done it too.

But you don’t have to recreate twenty old research projects.  Work on the one project you’re researching now—the one question you want answered.  When you eventually move to another old project, do the same thing.  Write down what you remember doing, mark it as being from memory, and start from there.

You may also find that simply writing everything down jogs your memory.  More importantly, once it’s on paper, your brain doesn’t have to keep trying to hold onto all of it.  That frees you to think about the question that matters now: Where do I go next?

Use Whatever Works for You

How you keep your research log is up to you.  If you like working on paper, use paper.  Put it in a binder or take a picture of it and save the photograph.  If you prefer working digitally, use a spreadsheet or another system that makes sense to you.  The important thing is to keep it somewhere you know you’ll be able to find it again.

I’ve actually created two research logs.  One is a simple paper research log that I created years ago.  If you’re intimidated by spreadsheets or just want something straightforward, you can use that one.  I also have a more detailed Excel research log, which is what I use for my own research.  It has different columns that allow me to search by things like the record set, name, or date.

Both of these research logs are available for you to use.  If one works for you, great.  If neither of them does, that’s fine too.  Find a system that works for you.

My own system has changed over the years.  When I first started researching, once I found the document I was looking for, I threw the research log away.  I figured I had found my answer, so why would I need the log anymore?

I don’t do that now.  I’ve learned that research has a way of crossing over.  Years later, I may be working on a completely different question and realize that I’ve already searched a record set that could help me now.

Today, I use a separate research log for the question I’m actively researching.  When I’m finished, I add that research to what I call my master research log—one Excel document where I keep all of my completed research together.

That’s my system.  I like having one place where I can check whether I’ve searched a particular record set or find research I’ve done before, rather than searching through every individual project I’ve ever worked on.

You don’t have to organize yours the way I organize mine.  Paper, Excel, a binder, photographs—use whatever works for you.  What matters is that a week from now, a year from now, or ten years from now, you can come back and figure out what you searched and what happened.

Start Simple.  Write It Down.

Documentation doesn’t have to be complicated.  At its simplest, you’re keeping a record of the question you’re trying to answer, what you plan to search, and what happened when you searched it.

That record helps you, but it can also help someone else.  If you eventually ask another genealogist for help, you can show them your research log and say, “Look, these are the things I’ve already done.”  They can see what you’ve searched, what you found, and where you came up empty.  Instead of starting over, they can help you figure out where to go next.

I learned the hard way that I couldn’t rely on my memory to keep track of all of that.  My first useful research log wasn’t elaborate.  It was a piece of notepaper I created because a very stubborn mentor refused to help a very stubborn teenager until she wrote down what she’d actually done.

It worked.

Your research log doesn’t have to look like mine.  It doesn’t have to be complicated, and it doesn’t have to be perfect.  It just needs to help you keep track of your research so that when you come back tomorrow, next year, or ten years from now, you don’t have to start over.

Start simple. Write it down.