Who, Me? Organized?

It appears the intrepid traveling genealogical researcher must be at the peak of perfection, when it comes to organization. After all, considering the resources poured into such a trip, there ought to be some return on investment.

That line of reasoning might lead one to think, “She is going on a genealogical research trip; ergo she is organized.”

Wrong-o.

Not this genealogical researcher.

So when Wendy asked, in a comment a couple days back, for my secret sauce for staying organized, I couldn’t say anything.

Wendy mentioned,

I am curious how you are organizing your notes for this trip. Notebook? Flashdrive? Excel spread sheet? How will you make sure you're not a half-hour down the road from Tipperary and suddenly remember, Oh—I wanted to look for....

Granted, she has a valid point. After all, who wants to remember what she forgot, just after the gates close and you have to head home?

I’m not the one to answer that question. I’m the one who used to be able to keep everything in my head, so list-making and spreadsheet wizardry are skills I’ve never taken the opportunity to develop. Besides, I never started this blog under the assumption that it is to be written by an expert. You know that. I’m the perpetual guinea pig. And I’m about to demonstrate that, yes, you should make a list. And yes, you should have other ingenious ways to preserve your sanity and never fail to remember everything.

I will say I’ve learned one lesson: to always have a back-up plan. Case in point: I once attended an out-of-town workshop in which I planned to share some data which was accessible on my tablet. While I carry a hotspot for back-up wifi access, I had thought the workshop location would provide Internet access. It didn’t. And though I needed to re-load the hotspot service, the time I had that morning should have been sufficient. It wasn’t: the site was down for half the day—the very hours I had left to try and re-up my service. If I had known, ahead of time, that I’d be faced with those two roadblocks, I would have just printed the material on my desktop before I left home. Sometimes, we just have to make room for “Plan C.”

For our Ireland trip, you can be sure I’ll be bringing printed copies of the pertinent data I want to have at my fingertips. You never know when the old-fashioned way will be the only way you can access what you need.

Sometimes, in the midst of research, it’s possible to find an unexpected fact that leads to the kind of questions that make you wish you had brought along a lot more of your family records. That’s when I like to have my entire database on hand. Face it, though: mine is one of those collections that contains records for upwards of thirteen thousand individuals. I won’t be printing all that out and carrying it around. Being able to tap into my Ancestry account will make the difference there.

Thanks to Far Side’s prodding, I do have lists of what I’m seeking in each county location. But even those I'll treat as a fluid read-out. Some of these journeys, I will be going in blind. I’m not sure what’s available, and what I can find. The lists are more amorphous than some people might prefer to see. That’s where flexibility comes in.

Of course, I’ve rehearsed the lines of these eight Irish individuals countless times, in my mind and out loud in explanations to family, friends and anyone else crazy enough to give me the time to listen. By this point, the quest seems rather straightforward to me. And yet, just as convoluted. Sometimes, I feel confident that I’ll find everything. And then, sometimes, I freak out that I will find nothing.

Perhaps, rather than pose as the expert and answer Wendy’s query myself, it would be better to crowdsource the answer. After all, you are just as likely—take that back; even more likely—to have some good suggestions for how to keep organized in the midst of The Big Research Trip. What do you feel is helpful? What has saved your skin, when you thought the whole trip was a bust? What tricks do you use to keep yourself on the right track?

It’s your turn to write a blog post here. Add your comments, or link back with a post on your own blog. I’m curious to see what has been helpful to you on your research trips, be they grand adventures or more modest excursions.

Above: County Clare native William Mulready's illustration to chapter one of Oliver Goldsmith's Victorian novel, The Vicar of Wakefield, "Choosing the Wedding Gown." Courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.