A comfortable amount of clutter

I have found that I am a disorganized genealogist in some ways, while I am very organized in others. It is a matter of choice how much or how little organization you use.
I use enough to make the job easy, but not enough to make it a job. I keep notebooks and files and computer programs of my documents and photos and family tree because I want them. I still, and always will have, a couple of boxes of unorganized paperwork. I used to believe that “someday” I would be perfectly organized, but now I am comfortable with the level of organization I have achieved and maintained for many years.
That is the glory of it, you get to do what you like best. I like to be able to lay my hands on a census or other record for my main lines. Those are my “old” files, from back when I thought I was going to find every vital record for everyone, that it was just a matter of looking (and paying) for them. Ha ha ha. Now however, although I love my paper records best, my tree is so large that I do not feel it makes sense to print it all out; and having it online makes retrieving it when I want it an easy process. Most of my new records are on computer and “in the cloud” which is just another way of saying on the Internet.
I find that allowing a certain amount of disorganization has allowed me to be comfortable moving on to a new person or family when a search doesn’t pan out. That is where I am a “disorganized” genealogist. When I get stuck, I don’t force myself to fill in that missing space in my pedigree chart. I move on and do something else. I think, for me at least, not being compelled to have every little thing in place at all times means that I can “leave a stone unturned” when it makes sense to do so.
Being able to move on keeps me from getting frustrated at failures and allows me to find joy in the thousands of successes over the years. I have never solved the mystery of from where in Ireland my family originated. But I moved on, and much to my surprise, I was able to learn where both of my Italian grandparents and their grandparents were born.
I am often moving around in my search process. However, over the years, I have learned to keep a page open on my word processor and keep promising information there as I find it. This has really cut down on illegible pages that get put aside for “later.” By attending workshops and conferences and continuing to read magazines and Internet websites I keep learning new techniques and have become organized almost by accident.
Genealogy is a lot more fun if you cut yourself some slack and let yourself discover/create a process that gets the job done and allows you to find the fun.
Columnist Nina Brawn of Dover-Foxcroft is a longtime genealogy researcher, speaker and teacher. Reader emails are welcome at ninabrawn@gmail.com. Her semimonthly column is sponsored by the Aroostook County Genealogical Society which meets the fourth Monday of the month except in July and December at Cary Medical Center’s Chan Education Center at 6:30 p.m. Guests are always welcome. FMI contact Edwin “J” Bullard at 492-5501.