Slow and Steady Builds a Valuable Tree

 

Have I mentioned how many trees I started.....and deleted? This futility could have easily been avoided. The only reason this happened, multiple times, was my own impatience in growing my tree. I won't say the time was wasted. I certainly came away with a ton of relevant reference notes for my current tree. But there's no way to sugar coat it - I lost years rushing to build inaccurate trees. I promised myself I'd never let it happen again. I will take my time, no matter how frustrating it can feel at times.

I try to spend some time every day researching (whether it's my tree, or trees I'm doing for others). Despite a steady pace, progress sometimes feels....well....slow. If you've been researching for any amount of time on Ancestry.com, you'll know what I mean. Save 3 hints, get 15 more. It's the beauty of the algorithms, but trying to reach the elusive 0 hints is a pipedream even the most serious family historians will likely never attain. Since no website is all encompassing, there will always be more record sets out there to review (online or in person). As families grow there are always more children to add. And as more people test their DNA, there will always be new matches and potential new ancestors found....which means even more descendants to add.

I constantly remind myself slow and steady wins the race just like the tortoise and the hare. I'll spend weeks cherry-picking hints to help decrease my overall hint count. During this time, I try not to add additional people to my tree unless there's a compelling reason. I do this to ensure I'm not falling into old patterns. Every so often, I'll work on a hint adding several new people all at once. This inevitably jumps my hint count by leaps and bounds (always more than I've actually been able to work thru in previous weeks). I'm sometimes overwhelmed by the sheer volume of hints. Right now my main tree of 1540 people has 9143 hints to review. At 10-20 hints a day, that's more than 2 years of research - not factoring in for the continued addition of new people and hints. Translation, I'll never "finish" my tree, it will always be a work in process.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of research to be done, take a breath and remind yourself why you do this. Genealogy is a labor of love and a desire to share (publicly or privately with your family).. Each of us has our own reason for embarking on the journey. Mine started trying to prove a family myth, but now it's to ensure others I'm related to know more about their history than I did when I started. Whatever your personal reasons, they have a deep meaning for you. Never lose sight of them and take the time to ensure you make the most of every moment spent researching.

Image by TweSwe from Pixabay