Favorite Genealogy Tools

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A suggested topic for this blog was A Favorite Tool for Research

We received a couple of replies which have spurred conversations from our editors.  We hope more of you will submit your favorite tools.


From Deborah Wigen-Noble:  

My “tool” right now is webinars. The speaker/presenter, the chat (gleaning all kinds of ideas and suggestions from others watching), and the opportunity to ask and have my questions answered - this often leads to more questions. - Debbi


From Annette Weiss: 

DNA is my tool ... can't beat the accuracy! I've been able to connect with a long-lost branch of my daily tree, adding over 100 descendants in the past 2 years. - Annette


From Kathleen Hanzeli: 

This probably sounds silly, but last week, when I was in Boston, I chose to travel light, meaning I left my big camera at home.  I did take my Magic Wand Scanner but it never came out of my bag.

Instead, I used my iPhone to scan (the scanning app associated with Evernote) and copy documents, etc.  It worked very well, the camera on the newer iPhones being so much better than the old.  I have an iPhone 11.  The scanner app also smooths out the wrinkles on pages and gets rid of the shadows, something the camera alone doesn’t do.

In addition to all of that, the copying went so much more quickly than using my Magic Wand or Flip Pal, saving me time for more research!

So my iPhone has become a new favorite tool! - Katie






From MaryLynn:  Katie's mention of the camera reminds me of my early adventures at NARA and Family History Centers.  I had determined that I wanted to learn how to use a camera for research; of course my thought was that someone would teach me how to do it.  I wound up experimenting and showing others what I had learned.

My camera at that time was a 2MG digital that used 4 AA batteries--heavy weight!  I had gathered an assortment of things such as picnic tablecloth clips to hold books open, etc., and a camera clamp tripod that could hold the camera above the opening on a microfilm reader.  I carried a piece of poster board to lay on the flat surface to cut down on the glare in pictures.  Getting set up to research took a few minutes.  Volunteers at NARA used to bring people over to watch what I was doing.

My camera was so heavy that it often fell off the readers and eventually the battery door wouldn't stay shut and I had to use duct tape on it!  

How far we have come that more of our records are now digitized and smartphones are so advanced!  But I am still glad I experimented with that process because it has made me curious about so much new technology.


From Valorie: Katie makes a great point! Saving time for more research is what makes various tools our favorites. In some other place, maybe Twitter, someone said that their favorite thing to take to the archives is a miniature pencil sharpener! I can see that tool being really useful when nothing but pencil and paper are allowed in. I love Debbi's tool too - there is so much fantastic content available these days. Be sure to check ConferenceKeeper if you have time and the inclination to learn about a particular place, time or topic. And, great call, Annette! DNA is critical to my progress now, too.

I wish I had been as skilled as MaryLynn with my digital camera for microfilm. I absolutely love that we can use digital microfilm any hour of the day or night now, even if we need to travel to a Family History Center or FHC-affiliate to view some of it. That leaves trips to Salt Lake City for only the most restricted records, or other libraries and archives with one-of-a-kind holdings.

Beyond the various genealogy databases, my most used tool are search engines, whether they be general searches of the web, or search engines within specific sites. And to keep track of those results, I usually link documents to multiple online trees, and now that I'm becoming more focused in my searches, I'm increasing using a research log. 

So, introducing some new tech: relational databases. My new favorite genealogy tool is like spreadsheets on steroids - Airtable, a relational database. And it's free! What won me over was using a template by Nicole Dyer, one of the authors of Research Like A Pro (RLP), in order to do a research log and in another tab, a linked list of the FANs (Friends, Associates and Neighbors) found in each of the logged sources. 

So, rather than Yet Another List of Stuff to add to the research folder, I have one doc with nearly everything I need to write a research report, or to research that half-remembered FAN. In short, it was a bit painful to learn but it's really neato! 


Here's a screenshot of part of my research project for our RLP study group, which is ongoing. 


Top of the Fan Club / Research Log for W. McBee in Airtable


When I was a new researcher, my favorite tools were pen and paper, envelopes (including SASE sized) and stamps! Right along with family group sheets and 3-generation blank trees. I'm glad we've mostly moved on from those tools, but I'm still grateful to see the forms that family filled in for me, because most of them have now passed. 

Writing to people on paper has mostly been replaced these days by email, and the most productive place to write emails is to online groups, such as our own Groups.io groups, https://skcgs.groups.io/g/Society and the subgroups. There are other wonderful groups where one can find collaborators, the latest genealogy news, upcoming events, and more. Genealogy societies are another productive place to spend time, and I've joined two more recently. 

I've not given up my spreadsheet work when I find census with direct ancestors, and now tax records and grantor/grantee indexes. I have not yet added links to the census I have in spreadsheets to that research log, but I will! I love having everything easily available. Did you notice that citations are included in the image above? Yes, write the citation when you find the resource, because all the information you need is there. And then any time you need that citation, you can just copy/paste rather than scrambling to write a citation when what you want to do is write! The more I practice this, the easier it gets.

I'm looking forward to the most fun tool of all: research trips! Since I've decided to write a book on my McBees from Tennessee, there are some research trips in my future. So my bank account will soon become a useful tool too! 

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