Write as you go, mostly

In my previous (journalistic) life, research was part of the job but footnotes were actually forbidden. I got into a kind of "factory system" for visiting libraries, in which I managed my time by planning carefully ahead, so that I more or less automated the process of looking up books and articles and photocopying the good parts, returning home (usually a one- or two-hour journey) to actually read and reflect on them.

"Rip and run" may not have been the best strategy even then. Now that I work in an environment where footnotes are mandatory and where it really helps to think on your feet while in a repository, it definitely is a bad habit to have.

"Write (and think) as you go" is usually a better form of time management (because what you write can often go directly into the research report or article) and a better form of resource management. And stopping to read and ponder each source and its potential evidence enables mid-course corrections that can save trouble later.

But real life does impinge on this. Many repositories are far away and we can't visit them as needed. There is a tradeoff involved. My friend and colleague Patti Hobbs, currently a genealogy librarian in Missouri, wrote recently on the Transitional Genealogists Forum that she would plead guilty to having committed "pinball genealogy":

"But it was either do it that way or not at all. I didn't feel that I could constantly test the patience of my family by doing more than collecting the documents when at the courthouses. People say that you will invariably have to go back to follow new leads, but I find that the case anyway." There's no question which is the best habit to have, but circumstances alter cases.

Very few repositories, even in small towns, can match the hospitable green expanse of Spiegel Grove (pictured above) in Fremont, Ohio, where the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center (and northwest Ohio obituary central) is located. And even there our non-genealogical traveling companions of all species do have their limits. As Patti says, "Do the best you can, but don't wallow in guilt if you can't do it perfectly.'" Or as I seem to say in more and more contexts: Something is better than nothing.



Harold Henderson, "Write as you go, mostly," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 28 June 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]