Evaluating Evidence and Reviewing Online Education

Week 6 of Genealogy Do-Over brings us Evaluating Evidence and Reviewing Online Education Options.  I admit that evaluating evidence brings me the most amount of angst.  I think because of my difference in how I'm researching (to write, not to log), evaluating will happen via words rather than a chart.  I can explain that there are four dates for someone's birth, where each came from and which I trust.  But in the text, rather than in a spreadsheet.  Doing this will be easy, whereas charting it makes me itch.  But I do still need to keep track of it all and so I use my Family Tree Maker file to log all the information. 

For online education, I so enjoy my Legacy Family Tree Webinars subscription.  I use the webinars all the time and enjoy each of them.  I highly recommend them and I have committed to one webinar a month.  I also want to get back to National Instituteof Genealogical Studies.  I just need some money and time.

Debbie Does DNA: You've Got Mail

Last time I noted that I got a number of new emails saying there were matches for me. Turns out it was one match, but matched to different tests.  The match was to a man with a different last name (note: NOT Conner) and no other information.  The email address for him bounced and he was matched at pretty far back generations.  So not much fun.

That said, the autosomal DNA test should be ready in the next couple of weeks.  I'm hoping that will provide some new fun matches to write about.  In the meantime, well, Debbie isn't doing DNA.  There is nothing to see here for right now.

Research Toolbox and Other Tools

For the Week 5 Genealogy Do-Over, the topics are: 1) Building a Research Toolbox; and 2) Citing Sources.  I already have a research toolbox that I use (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25796332/MMToolbox.docx) and add to when I find new places.  I no longer use bookmarks for genealogy, as if I find something, I add it to the toolbox right then.  So I'm already on top of #1. Woo hoo!

For citing sources, I use my Evidence Explained book, but I needed to make a cheat sheet for my own personal most common sources.  I started one and put it in my DropBox with my Research Toolbox.  (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25796332/MMToolbox.docx).

Now to get back to my writing project...  Hopefully next week, I'll be able to post some of it.