Logging Work in Labs

OK, I admit it. I am not good about keeping a research log. As I’m working in FamilySearch’s Experimental Labs, I’m finding a need to track my progress. Thus, I need a ‘research log’.

I’ve currently been searching for the Crawford surname in Lincoln County, Kentucky records. Since the various branches of my Crawford research were in Kentucky prior to 1800, I started with records from the 1700s.

Having previously researched the deed indexes and thus the deeds I assumed that I already had these records cited in my RootsMagic file. Thus, my first step was to look at the record and then check to see that it was not only cited but transcribed in my file. If it wasn’t cited, I then checked my Scrivener Crawford folder for Kentucky to see if I had already transcribed the record. In the process, I discovered new records! I also found that this is a time consuming process! Thus, I was not getting all 21 records worked in one day.

To track my progress, I created an Excel spreadsheet (yes, a research log). My original log contained the title of the record shown in the list of results, the year, surname and given name. After several days of working with these results, I added a column titled “number” to keep track of the order of the records in the results. By knowing the order, I could more easily go back to a record at a later time.

As I worked these deeds, I added columns for the year, the image number and the total number of images. By keeping track of the image number, I can scroll thru the images and easily get back to the desired record.

Once I have the image numbers recorded, I then go to image one to find the film number and add that information to my spreadsheet. After working with these results for several days, I discovered that the title shown on the results list is not the same as the title shown above the image. Thus, I added another column for the title shown above the image.

Then I go to the catalog records for the county (Lincoln County, Kentucky) and open the list of land records in a new tab. This allows me to ‘match’ the film numbers. By having the film numbers, I can then get the exact title to start building a citation.

I added additional columns to track the document in Scrivener, RootsMagic and my blog.

When I progressed to the records from the 1800s, I was not observant. I started creating my 1800s log for all of the Lincoln County results. Thus, I recorded a number for the order of the 61 records. After creating the initial list, I realized that I could limit my results by decades.

Thus, I added two more columns: one for the decade and one for the number representing the order of the records for that decade.

Prior to taking the time to create this spreadsheet, I was struggling to pick up my work the next day. Recording this information in my ‘log’ has proven essential to my work. Thus, I might actually continue creating and using log files.