Getting Back To My Family History Research

To say I have been in a research rut over the past year or so would be an understatement. I haven’t really been focused on my actual research. I have been reading genealogy resource books, memoirs, books about my ancestral community, and other family history blogs. I am realizing that 2023 was the year of me telling my ancestors stories and my research quickly took a back seat to other things I was doing within family history community. Last year I had the honor and privilege of speaking about my research and family for a school in my hometown, the NAACP and genealogy societies, and being a guest on the genealogy podcast, Speak On It. I entered an essay contest where I wrote about my ancestor, Rev. Robert Hatchett and won first place. I focused much of last year cleaning my family’s headstones. I attended RootsTech in person in Salt Lake City, UT for their first in person conference in three years. It was during that conference and the time I spent at the Family Search Library that I did the majority of my research last year. I’m going to have to make a better effort to make time for my actual research. 

I have been researching my family history since 2011, so I guess I may be overdue for some sort of research rut. Although I have found some wonderful stories about my ancestors and tell them all the time to anyone who will listen, I want to learn more of their stories and get to know more of my ancestors. Here are a few things I will be doing to get back into my research groove.

• I’m going to focus on two couples in my research this year, my 3X great grandparents, Tilman and Ann Eliza Ward; and my 2X great grandparents, Rufus and Classie (Moose) Goodlow.
• I’m going to dedicate one day a week for me to research at list two hours, Genealogy Tuesdays.
• I’m going to restart my research of them from the beginning and actually document my research as I go.
• I’m going to get a professional consultation on where to start researching these ancestors.
• I’m going to plan a family history road trip to the ancestral home of of Tilman and Ann Eliza Ward in Brownsville, Haywood county, Tennessee or go to the Tennessee state archives to research that city/county.
• Since both of these couples lived during slavery and reconstruction, I’m going to learn more about the Freedman’s Bureau records, sharecropping records, land records, and tax records which are all records I don’t use very much as of right now.