Creating the Foundation: Initial Genealogy Research Using Spreadsheets - Civil War Part 2

[@Lana._I_am_me]

I often plop things into a spreadsheet when I find them. It helps me to see patterns and gaps easily and focus on what the documents provide.

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Yep. Spreadsheets are great analytical tools to process data. Thanks for watching. I hope you'll keep the comments coming.

[@martiphone4884]

I have "floating" people and their trees in Ancestry and in my FamilyTree Maker software (FTM). That way if I find out later that they are related, then I can just link them. To help me stay focused on my specific task I will actually make a sign and post it on my bulletin at eye level that I can easily see when I'm working.

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

I LOVE the sign idea. As to the floating folks, I had considered that. But remember, my initial goal wasn't to fully invest in the entire lives of the men but to analyze data in ways trees don't allow for. And yet, sharing the data and putting everything in a tree does come up, later in the 10 part series.

[@stinkahny]

Rabbit holes and squirrel chases are my biggest weakness. I have recently begun using Connie Knox's "hyper focus on one ancestor at a time" technique, and find that (usually) helps me to not go down those holes.

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Hyper focusing on one ancestor is typically my approach, I have never give it a name. The question between whether something is a rabbit hole or a reasonable tangent all comes down to a research question and whether we're sticking to it. If you'll notice, I keep reminding myself to go back to "What is the research question?" in other words, what is my limiting factors? So, while this project has taken a LONG time, it's been very informative and enlightening. Eventually, I'll get back to writing William James Townsend's story, but first, I have to wrap up the tangent.

[@darlenesye1609]

@@stinkahny is hyper focus one specific video on G TV?

[@tracymeyers616]

@@darlenesye1609 "Hyper Focus" shouldn't really need a video or explanation. It simply means you start with your person of interest, research him or her from birth to death - though typically it is in reverse; from death to birth and all of the records and events in between. Such as buying/selling land (land deeds); tax records; census records federal and state (where applicable); city directories; newspapers; etc. etc. Then you move to their spouse and research them in the same way. Then you research each of their children in the same way. You don't just collect records but you transcribe them, analyze them; take copious research notes, compare and contrast the information you have found, etc., etc. for each person you do this. You don't jump around from family line to family line, to another couple, or some other thing / person that has just caught your eye. Instead, you stay, remain, hype focused on the person you started with. Only when you are done him/her and their entire family - spouse, children - thoroughly researching each with hyper-focused attention - do you move on

[@robins8769]

Thanks! I have a Civil War soldier (Confederate) who was turned down for pension multiple times til a few affidavits got him approved. Then I found a partial letter in a vertical file from his older brother to their mother saying the younger brother was there too (in 1865 when my guy was 18). All this to say - I've thought about a similar spreadsheet to track that company so I can search the other members and maybe find more clues. So thanks for the guidance (and the head start)!

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

I think you'll find a lot of value in researching a unit. You'll come to know your ancestor through the process. But, be prepared for some time consuming tasks. I hope you'll watch the whole series and find the tools that will benefit your research the most.

[@ewanwild]

I have a couple of thoughts, so I am going to make more than one comment. First, I think a spreadsheet is a good way to start. For the very reason you had to stop, back-up, and rework yours. As this project is unwieldy and unknown, spreadsheets can evolve as you find information growing, or not, and has the ability to be reconfigured as you go. You showed us that you were able to add columns, move information as you became aware that other information was more relevant than first thought, hide information that was less "currently" relevant/distracting, etc. Also, they are so powerful. You can use excel to create chars or something more complex like PowerBI to re-evaluate your data and find meaning in the social fabric of the history you have uncovered.

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Thanks so much for helping to validate my initial thought process. I do believe that spreadsheets really give you the ability to adapt, grow, and change as you learn more about your ancestors. Thanks for helping to ease my doubt.

[@ewanwild]

My second thought was this, in my Ozark, County Civil War history, the regiments (which for a long time we assumed being located where they were belonged to the South until my great aunt remembered playing with a blue uniform as a child) signed up en-masse with the local prominent land owners son as a unit. One relative in particular, was injured at the Battle of Pea Ridge, but made it home. He was killed for "ransom" shortly after he was discharged because his family didn't have the funds to pay. When his widow applied for his pension, the pension office kept asking clarifying questions about their marriage and her situation (as the courthouse in town has burned down several times before, during, and after the war) until his widow died of old age. They approved the pension 2 weeks after she died. So I agree with you, sometimes the social histories of family, neighbors, and war history found in pension records are fascinating!

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Wow! That's crazy and sad at the same time for the widow. But what a twist of history. And am I understanding you? You learned about this through pension records. Way cool!

[@Bigburma]

A couple of years ago I found a collection on Ancestry of vital records for the area in Northern Italy my maternal grandfather's parents came. So I started to gather the surnames I know. Before I knew it I had about 4 generations with siblings and I am still working on untangling the families. On top of that I found the conscription lists for the men in the same area that went back another 60 years. So now I am working on a 4 generation project starting about 1795

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

That's a cool way to expand your family tree. I'd love to see that!

[@Bigburma]

@@FamilyHistoryFanatics I am still trying to organize it. I have been transcribing and translating the records and struggling to get them into groups

[@cathyc6725]

I had to fight the urge to go down many rabbit holes at the NC State Library a few years ago. I was researching only 1 man, to try and determine if he might be the father of my ancestor, but the majority of my other family lines also were from Colonial NC. I was sooo hard to ignore all the information I kept coming across for those lines. But my time was too limited to get into any of that research.

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

On site research has to be focused, to be sure. Online research does allow for more tangents. But the question becomes, are these tangents with a purpose or just a rabbit trail to nowhere.

[@feliciagaffney1998]

Better to have additional things of interest, than a short research plan! Lol. I went to the NC State Archives (upstairs from the Library) last year with a list, and they didn't have much on half of my list. 😕 so... then I was just digging around trying to figure out what else to research while I was there. I ended up with a pile of copies of documents... but felt I wished I had more good stuff to look for. For example... I had seen a newspaper legal notice that my 3rd great grandmother was getting a divorce from her second husband. I was hoping for some juicy gossip and details about their life with court papers and some testimony or affidavits... but, alas... there was no court record. Just them on the docket. The same information that was printed in the paper. I think I've determined they must have reconciled and didn't get the divorce. I figure he must have promised to shape up and do better. But it was a dead end that left me with nothing to pour over for half an hour or an hour. Lol

[@cathyc6725]

This is a great idea! I need to re-watch a few times to take it all in.

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Thanks so much. There is also a blog linked in the description that supports this video. Perhaps it can be a helpful resource as well.

[@geneewert7591]

I use the OCR in Google Notes a ton. I’ll do a print screen or whatever to get it to a Note then use the “Grab image text”. Since I found this I literally use it all the time. You have to do some manual updates but it is fantastic. And free!

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Huh! I'm not familiar with that. I'll need to make of note of this and find out more. Thanks for leaving your comments. I learn so much from this community.

[@ellensippel8413]

Thank you! This was very helpful to see, especially how you linked the records back to the original source! One thing you briefly mentioned but I would like to see you address, is how do you handle multiple projects at one time. I have so many "irons in the fire" and not sure how I can accomodate them all and do them well. Thanks again for your channel.

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

That's a great idea. Perhaps I could open it up for discussion, and or have a live stream and get other's insight. The reason is, I'd like to know. My problem is I'm a tunnel vision project person. Meaning, I get so focused on one thing, I can't juggle anything else at the same time. My husband has pointed this out to me over and over throughout our marriage. I'll focus on one thing - family scrapbooking for 2 months and do nothing else. Then I'll work on William James Townsend's regimental history for 8 months and nothing else. I have multiple irons in the fire, but since few of them have deadlines, I just tunnel vision on one thing until I hit burn out or a roadblock. Then I switch to something else and eventually circle back. So, I'm the wrong person to ask, thus I should get more insight if you don't mind.

[@feliciagaffney1998]

I think it's inevitable to have many irons in the fire when it comes to genealogy. And now, with sooo many more records digitized... on one hand yes, it makes research so much easier... on the otherhand... it is waaay too easy (for the same reason) to get distracted by other lines. And every time you open up one brick wall, it's like minesweeper, and you hit a bubble... POOF! So many new avenues open up. I tend to collect a bunch of low-hanging fruit for new folks, probably just glance at it, and then file it in a folder for that person or family on my computer. Go back to my main focus and dig into that until I'm satisfied (ha! Never!) Or have enough brick walls again it's time for a break. It's more a matter of just staying focused on your target, I think. Or, maybe you just need to determine/ identify your target. Choose one family or one person and do what you can on them until it is exhausted.

[@TerryBlair-i7c]

My Great Grandfather was in the Civil War and I also wanted to know more about the people he served with, although limiting my interest to his company. So, several years ago, I started collecting information, putting it in a spreadsheet (which is an appropriate database to use for holding similar informtion as defined by the column headers). Ultimetly, after several iterations, these are the headers that I came up with: LN FN MI Rank Age Mustered In Mustered Out FS PID Born Died Buried COD Finda # Father Mother Spouse Notes Day Month Year Time Day Month Year Day Month Year Location State Day Month Year Location State Cemetery Twp/City County State I never thought about pension records and I need to look there for missing information. I did keep track of FamilySearch PIDs and Findagrave numbers as an indication that I found the record and so I could easily go back to the sites it necessary. Too, with so many places in the US having the same name, I feel it is necessary to keep track of counties as well as cities or townships.

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

I LOVE these header ideas. It all depends on what your research question is. I also thought about the FS PID idea but I didn't opt for it. I need to rethink why, but for now, I know I did consider it.

[@geneewert7591]

I have been wanting to do this with my Dad’s WWII company. It of course has issues that are much different but you gave me the kick in the rear to get going again and I did get a start a be few years ago with a list from an Egyptian currency that my dad had his buddies sign.

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Wow, that sounds like a very interesting document! So cool! Yes, you'll run into some different challenges than I do. However, if some more researchers can do group work and find a great way to organize and share their data, we all can benefit. So, I'm glad I went on this tangent. I hope you'll follow along on the journey.

[@constanza1648]

My main genealogy tool is a spreadsheet: it's easy for me to gather all the data I have in there, better than a tree. When I started with the tree, I have the problem of visualizing all the family in one sight and it was a little tedious to go back and forth on the tree. Sometimes I wanted to go to one place and look for birth records (year by year) and it was easier to arrange the spreadsheet by place - year of birth, so I can go year by year and look for all the last names I have in that place. As search engines are not a good way to search for people outside US (most of the data is not indexed), I had to check book by book, year by year... and spreadsheets were the best way for me. You can add links, you can select the column you want to arrange (alphabetically by last name, by brith place, by year, by father-mother...). I never check for FAN people. I stay in 3 generations away from my relative (all sons/daugters and all grandchildren). And I only have access to birth, death and marriage records. For some places (with a lot of luck) I can check for censuses. Even with that, it is a lot!

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Wow! Thanks for taking the time to explain your process. Spreadsheets definitely have the advantage of sorting and filtering research! I wish there was a way between spreadsheet views and family trees without using two different tools. I'm not sure this idea is forthcoming because too few researchers would find this advantage.

[@darlenesye1609]

Someone has probably said this already but when you did the original copy from the index, to paste has an option to right click and Paste Special. IMHO, I think you did Very Well to start with a spreadsheet. I am finding So Many options when I export from my legacy database to a spreadsheet.

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

I tried the Paste Special and it didn't help. But yeah, I did think about it. Thanks for confirming the use of spreadsheets for data analysis in genealogy research. There is so much value. The challenge is how and when to use them while dealing with genealogy guilt and the topic of my next video which will be late in releasing due to some technical issues.

[@darlenesye1609]

@FamilyHistoryFanatics Devon, try Open Office & paste special

[@Lana._I_am_me]

One thing that made me cringe was when you hid the column. I often move those to the far right, especially if it is websites or long strings of information. I also often shrink that column by using the smallest font size available and/or change the text colour to grey. It helps me focus on the data I want to see but still am able to be aware of what I have collected for each row.

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Sorry to make you cringe. I hide columns so I don't move them out of the sort range. I have too often moved columns around only to find that when I sort data, I don't keep the distracting columns with the data and mess up the whole table. For me, hiding a column while focusing on a data set keeps the content together. So, that's the method to my madness. But I can see how other strategies work. We don't want data to get separated and have us have to redo the work over again. Make sense?

[@feliciagaffney1998]

Wow! Thanks! I didn't know there was a whole index for pension information. That may solve my whole quest for my Civil War soldier unit information. Or the majority of it. I was finding my pension cards I needed, but haven't run across information that these things are actually indexed somewhere.

[@feliciagaffney1998]

Maybe I'm confused. This "index"... it's not a spreadsheet? Do you have a video specifically on this "Index"?

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Yay!!! Then I'm SO happy that I made this video and you were able to find it. Yep. There are 2 pension collections. One is on FamilySearch and Ancestry, the other is on Fold3. (I also believe Findmypast and MyHeritage also have one of the index collections, but I'm not sure if they have the one similar to Fold3 or to FamilySearch & Ancestry). If you don't have access to some of these collections, go to the local FamilySearch Center (formerly Family History Centers) and the computers there will have access for free!. Pretty nice, huh?

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

The spreadsheet is something I created from the Civil War Pension indexes. This video does discuss where I got the information, the columns I created and says I typed in the information into the spreadsheet. I'm not sure what else to share about the process, but I'll be happy to answer any questions

[@feliciagaffney1998]

​@@FamilyHistoryFanatics I understand you are creating the spreadsheet. I guess I had missed you telling us where you found your data. It's another resource I must find, now. Lol. I thought from something you said near the end of this video, you had some spreadsheet (you had said index) you were getting your info from. I may have been distracted while watching your video and missed some things. 🙈 I have located another nifty search tool on Fold3 while digging around Pension files this week. Not just Civil War... and has prompted me to create another spreadsheet to try and track my fighting ancestors (and siblings, and some in-laws) so I can make sure I figure out which have all participated in an American war. Also, this may change the way I use Fold3 the most. Are you familiar with the "browse" function on Fold3, found on the bottom of the home page?

[@feliciagaffney1998]

​@@FamilyHistoryFanatics 0:55 ok. Finally found this set of records you are using. I don't know if there's an actual index somewhere of all the names on this "approved pension file" list. That would definitely make things easier. Lol. Did you manually download 2000 of these records? However... and I'm sure this doesn't help you at all... this is not a complete set. I get 2000+ records for my Union guy's Regiment, but only 8 come up for his Company. And my guy isn't one of them. I have his pension file that a researcher retrieved and sent to me last year. So... something about this isn't complete. I don't know if these are just widow applications only, or what. My solider started getting his pension while he was alive.

[@davedrive2003]

In Excel I would paste similar using 'Paste Special' 'Text', this puts copy and paste of data like that into a column for each field rather than just one intermingled column. There is probably something similar in Google Sheets.

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Great Excel tip. I think I tried a lot of combinations and I just went with something I could figure out with too much work. I did think someone might have had better results that I had in sifting through the process. If I had to redo this process again, I think I'll try your tip.

[@lizagervais8621]

I now understand why the spreadsheet

[@FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Yep. I wasn't crazy for starting with the spreadsheet (at least initially). 😜