I’ll be honest. I do a fair amount of my genealogy research by brute force. That’s not always the most efficient way to go.
I’ve been doing a fair amount of work lately on first cousins of my great and great-great-grandparents. Approximately one fourth of them lived a significant portion of their life in Adams and Hancock Counties in Illinois.
There are digital newspapers available for several newspapers in those counties and in nearby towns in adjacent counties. Many of these are hosted on local library or historical websites. There are some newspapers available at the Library of Congress or on one or more of the fee-based sites. There are various digitized county records available at FamiySearch. Some of these are included at Ancestry or other sites to which I have a membership.
I’ve created a “toolbox” for myself of resources I have used in this area. It prevents me from having to do some of the leg work over and over and it reminds me of what materials are there so that I don’t forget them.
I don’t track who or what I have searched for in these records, databases, and finding aids–just that they exist, what time period and records they cover, and where they are. It’s organized by record type.
Have you created a toolbox for those locations where you have a significant number of family members?
It’s hard to keep everything in your head.
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