Genealogy Do-Over: To Do or Not To Do?

I have been thinking lately about joining the MacEntee Genealogy Do-Over group for real (not just reading the Facebook page!).  I am, as they say, in the contemplative phase.  Friends could tell you that I am frequently in the contemplative stage about a lot of projects.  This is true.  I seem to spend a lot of time thinking about doing or how to do before I am finally ready to commit myself to act.  I’m sure this is diagnostic of something or other.

Be that as it may, I have been toying with the idea of the Do-Over since I am trying harder to source evidence for the things I know about my family lines.  More than a year ago I started a fresh new RootsMagic tree for my family intending to add people as I had evidence to back up the facts.  A good idea I haven’t followed through on.

Moreover, at this point I am aware of how much information I have collected and not done anything with.  I have digital images of all sorts of registers and certificates (as well as index entries and actual pieces of paper) that do actually provide some evidence about events in people’s live.  The digital files live in surname folders on my computer (at least I’ve gotten that far!) with inconsistent filenames and as I work on a given folder I discover that I “found” the same evidence more than once (sometimes years apart) since I didn’t see/know that I already had it.  I also have binders of paper information of the same sort from earlier times which is in the same sad state of never having been connected to the people referred to.  Bah!

Worse yet, as I have worked on a folder to assign consistent (and currently approved-by-Pat) filenames, I don’t necessarily add the information to my tree, so if I am looking at it I don’t know that I have evidence for a fact.  Double Bah!  I do know better than this, I just don’t do what I know is a better way.

So my contemplation of the Genealogy Do-Over is thinking about whether it will help me conquer this nasty habit or set of habits and establish a more organized way of researching.  I would like to be able to see that I am actually making some progress and learning new things about my family lines because I could see that I needed to research a particular question.  My perfectionistic self would also like to be able to see that computer files and paper files are organized and easy for anyone to look at and understand.