Yesterday, I shared a look at how my genealogy study cart is organized in preparation for some summer study. If you missed the video, you can see it here.
I thought I'd do a detailed round-up of what's included since the video is pretty quick!
First off, we need to start with the books, since they are the stars of the show. It's probably going to surprise you which ones I'm "reading goodbye" this summer:
- The National Archives of the United States by Herman J. Viola. This is NOT a research book. It's a coffee table book about the National Archives and while it's very interesting, it's definitely an indulgence for history nerds rather than an essential. I love it but it's mostly on the cart because I needed a big sturdy book to act as a bookend for all those skinnier ones.
- Family Photo Detective by Maureen A. Taylor. I love this one and use it often when looking at old photos that haven't been identified. Heads up - there's a new edition out that doesn't look like this but is supposed to be even better.
- Mastering Genealogical Proof by Thomas W. Jones. This is one of the first "serious" study books I got about family history and it completely changed the way I approach analyzing genealogical evidence.
- Genetic Genealogy in Practice by Blaine T. Bettinger and Debbie Parker Wayne. This is a good primer-meets-workbook for people who have gotten DNA test results back and don't know what to do with them.
- Unofficial Ancestry.com Workbook by Nancy Hendrickson. This book is clear and easy to follow. If you have an Ancestry subscription but you suspect you're not doing as much as you could on there, this is a great overview. That being said, one of my summer goals is to give this another thorough read and then pass it on. I'm pretty confident in my Ancestry skills so I haven't cracked this in a while. I love books but I'm pretty ruthless about shelf space!
- Generation by Generation: A Modern Approach to the Basics of Genealogy by Drew Smith. This is a fairly new book that has a great overview of family history now. I did an initial read and now I want to go back through a little slower to make sure I didn't miss anything.
- The Handybook for Genealogists: United States of America (10th edition). This thing weighs a ton but I grab it pretty frequently because it has all sorts of random stuff that's helpful. If you're doing research in the U.S., this is a great way to orient yourself to the counties, dates, and records for each state you're looking at. The bibliographies included for each state have also been really handy.
- Tracing Your Irish Ancestors by John Grenham. It's the everything-included go-to book if you have Irish ancestry. I haven't read the whole thing but it's helped me get oriented to the counties I need to look at.
- Polish Roots by Rosemary A. Chorzempa. This is another country-focused research book although you have to remember that it covers the surrounding areas of modern day Poland thanks to the ever shifting boundaries over the last couple hundred years.
- Research Like a Pro: a Genealogist's Guide by Diana Elder with Nicole Dyer. Confession - this was a gift and I haven't read it yet, but that's what summers are for!
- The Family Tree Polish, Czech, and Slovak Genealogy Guide: How to Trace Your Family in Eastern Europe by Lisa A. Alzo. Sadly, I haven't tackled this one either. Soon!
- Unoffical Guide to FamilySearch.org: How to Find Your Family History on the World's Largest Free Genealogy Website by Dana McCullough. A good book but one that is on the same path as the Ancestry.com guide above.
- The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy by Blaine T. Bettinger. This book is a little thicker than the other DNA book I mentioned above so I thought it was a next step in getting more advanced, but it's just a different approach to what is mostly the same info. Both books are good, but this is the one that I'm giving a final thorough read-through before letting it go. Note - if you haven't read either, this one is a little more reader-friendly I think but it's a hard call.
- Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques by George C. Morgan and Drew Smith. A great book but one I haven't picked up in a while so it's getting a final read-through this summer as well.
- What People Wore When: A Complete Illustrated History of Costume from Ancient Times to the Nineteenth Century for Every Level of Society by Melissa Leventon. I adore this book. Fun fact about me - I went to college on a theater costuming scholarship a bazillion years ago because that's what I thought I was going in to and I've worked as a professional costumer. I don't do that anymore but I still love to browse the fashions and match them up to my ancestors.
- A Field Guide to American Houses: The Definitive Guide to Identifying and Understanding America's Domestic Architecture by Virginia Savage McAlester. Second only to what our ancestor's wore is the buildings they were living in. I don't know why I'm so fascinated but this book is fantastic. I think I'm just a giant nerd.
- The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy (4th edition) by Val D. Greenwood. Do we all own this one? I think it's the one I see the most often besides Evidence Explained. I don't reach for this as often as I reach for the Handybook but I would never get rid of it unless I'm going for a new edition of the same book.
- Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills. Yes, it's pricy but it's the go-to if you don't understand how to write a source citation for your family history work and we ALL need to be citing our sources, even if we're only casual family historians. There's a new edition available but I haven't grabbed it yet. My tabs and I are old friends and I'm not ready to let them go.
On the bottom of the cart, you can see a large black book. This is an oversized sketch book that I've turned into a study text. It's where I keep little notes, magazine articles, things from conferences, etc., all organized by topics written out on post-it tabs.
Once we get past the books, nothing else on the cart is strictly "necessary" but I'm an active reader in that I annotate my books and mark them up to get as much out of them as I can. I also go through post-it notes like you wouldn't believe when I'm researching so I don't lose any thoughts. So, some of this stuff might seem a little weird but it's my toolkit.
Starting from the top, we have magnifying glasses. I like to have these within arm's reach because I use them a lot when looking at old photos but I also have some trouble with my eyes sometimes and readers don't cut it. Just a me problem? Maybe. Two are truly vintage but I mostly use this sturdy vintage-looking magnifying glass I found on Amazon. There are some lose black-ink pens thrown in as well although my favorite pens are in a different place near my desk.
The plant is a plastic plant from Amazon as well. I'd love to have a real plant but I have cats who are awful about that kind of thing so plastic it is. It's really just there because it's pretty. I like pretty when I'm working (says the woman with an entire office of pretty).
I added some organizing containers to the top to hold things I use all the time. I'm not even kidding - I go through a pad of these little post-it notes almost every week so I got a whole set of them for the summer in "Beachside Cafe" colors. How cute are they?
The white post-it tabs are the ones I use most often in my family tree notebooks to write the ancestor names that go on the dividers because the white part is like paper so they're easy to write on. I used to use different colors for different ancestors, but now I just use the white ones for everything because it makes it easy to update them when I need to change a tab.
The pastel highlighters are pretty good at not bleeding through but I don't always trust them (you'll see alternatives in a sec). I'm picky about highlighters and I also have some from Mildliner (for my planners) and Sharpie (for documents) but for actual books I like something that's a little lighter most of the time. Plus these feel good to hold.
When I don't want to use highlighters at all because I don't want to get that kind of ink on the page, I have transparent highlighter tape. It's a little bit of a pain to use because you have to use scissors to cut it to the right size but it's gorgeous and fancy-looking when it's on and obviously there's no bleed-through. These sticky note circles are also transparent so they're good for writing little notes or highlighting paragraphs but I don't use them all the time.
I also have a ton of transparent book tabs. I do like to tab my books and when I'm reading things that are a little more focused, I use the colors on the tabs to annotate different things so I can find them later. (It's a whole thing - ask if you're curious.) Do I really need so many colors? No, but it's the little things.
In the background, you can also see that I have some bookmarks in the same container. I love the little magnet bookmarks because they don't fall out when I carry my books around and these ones are Friends themed so they get extra points.
The last container has more book tabs but these are the kind that stick out and have enough space for writing or symbols if you want. I use the more expensive post-it ones for my family tree notebooks but when I need to use "stick out" tabs for books, I just use these ones. I don't know if that makes sense. I'm starting to feel self-conscious about how many weird little organizing things I have.