Hi Rob,
Unless you know that you can "Get details of all children of Fred Smith" from Mary Jones, who knew or knows them, or Fred Smith himself, I think this ToDo is too big.
Find Fred Smith and family in 1891 Census OR Check BMD indexes for Smiths born 1915-1930 mother's maiden surname Jones, would go toward achieving the same object (provided your surnames weren't really Smith and Jones ;-)). However you've thought through more where you will find this information and can say Yes they are there or No, can't see them. If you find them, great, if not, then note that and write another ToDo with the next likely place.
If I found the family in the Census then I would add ToDos for each child to find them in BMD indexes and another ToDo to find them as adults in later census.
I think I've already said that I keep unsuccessful ToDos so I don't repeat the search and delete successful ones where the entry of the information shows clearly that I've searched a particular source. There are some grey areas and I keep them to.
Cheers, Cathy
At 08:18 PM 28/10/2004, you wrote:
RIch,
Thanks for this tip. I'm still grappling with managing ToDo's, and haven't got it right yet. Something I have learnt the hard way is that it is necessary to record what you DIDN'T find as well as what you did find. (I read this somewhere but its significance didn't penetrate my thick skull until I kept going back to the same source for the same information and continued not to find it!).
So I currently keep a running log in a particular ToDo until I close it off completely, at which point I guess I could delete it, like you do. Problem is I often only get part of the info I need in one go. (eg. name but no birth date, or birth date but no death or marriage dates.) Maybe my ToDo's are too big (e.g. "Get details of all children of Fred Smith".)
Would be interested to hear more about how you (and anyone else) copes with "progressive" ToDo's, and other tips for managing the research process efficiently.
Cheers, Rob
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