Organizing Family History Writing Projects – An Interview with Rhonda Lauritzen

Summary

Family Tree Magazine Podcast

Episode: Organizing Family History Writing Projects – An Interview with Rhonda Lauritzen
Date: November 2, 2025
Host: Lisa Louise Cook
Guest: Rhonda Lauritzen (professional biographer, Evalog Life)

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Lisa Louise Cook interviews Rhonda Lauritzen, a professional biographer and family storyteller, about effective strategies for starting, organizing, and actually finishing family history writing projects. Drawing from her new article "In the Right Order" (Family Tree Magazine, Nov/Dec 2025), Rhonda shares practical methods, tools, mindset tips, the judicious use of AI, and approaches to overcoming the overwhelm that often stops genealogists and family historians from turning years of research into compelling narratives.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Getting Started: Conquering the Blank Page ([00:54])

• The Overwhelm: Starting a writing project can feel intimidating. Rhonda recommends a systematic approach, setting up "buckets" or placeholders for everything to keep the process orderly from the outset.
• Initial Organization Methods:
  • File and folder structures, both digital and physical
  • Dedicated checklists for consistent project starts
  • Early "housekeeping" is enjoyable when project excitement is high

    "At the beginning of every project, I set up the buckets, the placeholders for where stuff goes... and from then on, it's so much easier to get my head around the work." – Rhonda [01:22]

2. Essential Files and Folders ([02:36])

• Three Major "Buckets":
  1. Work in process document – A catch-all Word/Google Doc for thoughts, impressions, snippets, quotes, and research notes.
  2. Interview Transcripts – A single, searchable file collecting all interviews.
  3. Timeline – The main structural "scaffolding" (usually a simple Excel spreadsheet).
  • Additional: Folder structures for digital and print, as well as physical binders (especially for client projects).

3. Defining Scope Early ([04:35])

• Establishing the project's scope is crucial, though it often evolves.

• Focus on telling "one story at a time," typically centered on one main character.

• Decide whether the story is about a person, a generation, a building, etc.

  "Deciding on the scope really is important... Usually I like to focus on one person as my main character and tell one story at a time." – Rhonda [05:34]

4. Building and Using a Timeline ([06:16])

• A timeline, even if basic, is the backbone for organizing events and details.

• Keep it simple to minimize friction—a spreadsheet suffices.

  • Columns: Date, citation/source, descriptive notes.

  "I just keep a simple Excel spreadsheet... one row for every date item in a person's life." – Rhonda [06:16]

5. Collecting Oral Histories & Interviews ([07:12])

• After setting up organizational buckets, Rhonda's first action is to seek out knowledgeable people—living relatives, family historians, community custodians.

• Even non-traditional sources (family genealogists, local keepers) can offer crucial context.

• Always capture stories in people's own words and voices.

  "There's no more enjoyable way to capture a story and no richer way than to capture their language..." – Rhonda [07:30]

6. Favorite Tools for Recording Interviews ([09:02])

• Remote: Zoom (with built-in recording and transcription if using a pro plan).
• In-person: Olympus digital recorder (mid-priced models like WS8XX series), Sony also recommended.
• On-the-fly: Smartphone recording apps.
• Tip: Invest in audio quality (e.g., clip-on microphones) because poor sound detracts from future usability.

  "People will forgive bad video, but they won't forgive bad audio." – Rhonda [10:53]

7. Assembling the Narrative ([11:31])

• Start with the work-in-process document to gather impressions.
• Use the timeline as a first-pass outline, writing "straight up along the timeline" and capturing "vignettes" (self-contained story moments).
• After a first draft, edit for emotional heart and pacing—Rhonda uses a storyboard at this stage.

  "Once I've cranked out a first draft, then I look at what I have, and then I start looking for the emotional heart of the story. I look for those moments that I really want to amp up. I look for pacing." – Rhonda [11:47]

8. The Power of Vignettes ([13:06])

• Vignette: A self-contained short story where something specific happens.
• Different from general memories; a vignette is anchored in time and includes a beginning, an action, and an outcome/lesson.

  “A vignette ... is a little story when something happened. So you would start a vignette like 'one day in 1982, my brother and I went down to the railroad tracks...'” – Rhonda [13:21]

9. Choosing What to Include ([15:17])

• Criteria: Each detail, photo, or fact must serve the story.

• Look for "the well-chosen detail" that stands for many.

• Avoid overloading with unnecessary data—use details that add to person, setting, or plot continuity.

  “My criteria is, does it serve the story?... One detail that sort of stands in for all the rest that really brings it to life.” – Rhonda [15:29]

• Photos: Use early for prompting stories, then curate for relevance after writing.

10. Tools of the Writing Trade & AI ([17:47])

• List includes: scanning hardware, file backup solutions, graphics tools, transcription services, and increasingly, AI-powered features.

• How NOT to use AI: Never delegate your narrative voice or let AI genericize your writing—preserve “imperfections” for authenticity.

  "The first rule I would say is never delegate your voice... your language, the way you really speak and the way you write is so much more interesting in its imperfections." – Rhonda [18:22]

• How to Use AI:

  • Transcription (Zoom, HappyScribe)

  • Summarizing long transcripts

  • Extracting key timeline points and citations

  • Proofreading/outlining

  • Prompts: Ask "What am I missing?" for critique and completeness.

    “I have AI extract the timeline for me... ‘Pull every date, every major life event. Give me a bullet point of the events and give me a citation... and then format that citation in Chicago Manual of Style.’” – Rhonda [19:42]

11. Writing Platforms and Practical Tips ([21:13])

• For small projects (< 50 pages): Word or Google Docs, with table of contents.

• For larger books/more complexity: Scrivener—facilitates layered/nested outlines, allows seeing research alongside writing, easy reorganization.

  "If my project is going to be a full book... Scrivener is so much easier to keep everything organized and moved around." – Rhonda [21:22]

• Scrivener exports to Word, PDF, Kindle, or segments for flexibility.

12. Rhonda’s Final Advice ([24:04])

• Attention Is the Currency: Organize well and minimize distractions—close everything but your manuscript while writing.

• One-draft Flow: Try writing your first draft as much as possible from memory in one sitting, using placeholders instead of getting stuck looking up every detail. Then add research in later rounds.

  "Just write what you know and get it down as quickly as possible, and then just use a placeholder for any time you need to look up a citation or a quote. That way you won’t get bogged down..." – Rhonda [24:04]

• Use AI for Outlines and Critique: Summarize drafts and ask for missing elements or ways to improve.

  "[AI] reinforced what you’ve already done. So I love to ask it, how could I make this better? What am I missing?" – Rhonda [26:05]

13. Further Resources

• Rhonda’s website: Evalogue Life – Free tools and articles, including a guide to transcription tools.

  “My website is Evalogue Life, E V A L O G U E L I F E. I have a ton of free tools there...” [27:08]

---

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Early Organization:

  "It doesn't feel burdensome to do a little bit of housekeeping at the beginning. Right. Because it's fun." – Rhonda [02:36]

• On Audio vs. Video:

  "People will forgive bad video, but they won’t forgive bad audio." – Rhonda [10:53]

• On Imperfections:

  "Your language, the way you really speak and the way you write, is so much more interesting in its imperfections." – Rhonda [18:22]

• On Scope Creep:

  “How often have you thought the scope was going to be something small... and then it grabs ahold of me and it won't let me go, and I find it is with me for the next few years.” – Rhonda [04:53]

• On AI Summaries and Critique:

  "My very favorite AI prompt of all time... is ‘what am I missing?’" – Rhonda [26:05]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:22] – Rhonda’s approach to conquering the blank page and getting organized
• [02:36] – Essential files and folder organization
• [04:35] – Importance of defining the scope
• [06:16] – Using a timeline as the project backbone
• [07:30] – Interviewing as the first narrative step
• [09:02] – Tools for capturing interviews
• [10:53] – Why audio quality matters most
• [11:47] – Turning research and interviews into narrative
• [13:21] – How vignettes work and transform memories into stories
• [15:17] – Choosing which details and photos to keep
• [17:47] – Tools of the trade and integrating AI
• [18:22] – Why not to let AI take over your voice
• [19:42] – How AI can extract and structure a timeline from transcripts
• [21:22] – Organizing and drafting: When to use Scrivener
• [24:04] – Mindset, attention, and a fast first draft
• [26:05] – Using AI to find what’s missing and improve your project
• [27:08] – Where to find more resources from Rhonda

---

Tone and Style

The conversation is practical, supportive, warm, and enthusiastic about storytelling, creativity, and leveraging both tried-and-tested and modern digital tools (including AI) to make family history writing accessible and fresh.

---

For More

• Evalogue Life: Free resources for storytellers – evalogue.life
• Family Tree Magazine: familytreemagazine.com/podcast
• Featured article: “In the Right Order,” Family Tree Magazine (Nov/Dec 2025)

---

This summary highlights the most informative, actionable, and inspirational moments to empower both beginner and experienced family history writers to get organized, get started, and truly finish their projects.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Family Tree Magazine podcast. This is the show from America's number one genealogy magazine.

[B]

I'm Lisa Louise Cook. Rhonda Lauritsen is a professional biographer at Evalog Life and a regular speaker at international conferences. She's written a dozen books and has been hired to help tell the story of families, cities, and nonprofits. And as an expert storyteller, Rhonda is joining us here today to talk about how to efficiently write well organized, yet gripping family history projects. Welcome back to the show, Rhonda.

[C]

Thanks. It's so great to be here. Always.

[B]

Well, I love your new article. It is in the November December 2025 issue of Family Tree magazine. It's called in the Right Order. And I was thinking about having written a couple books myself. That blank page is kind of intimidating, particularly if we are not seasoned or regular writers. Instead of just trying to sit down and just start writing, how do you recommend that, that we start a writing project?

[C]

So, first of all, this article and this topic is the thing I wish I'd had when I first started because it's so overwhelming to think, okay, where do I even begin? And so now, after all these years, I have a systematic process. And I begin every new project by just setting up the buckets, the placeholders, for where stuff goes. And that way I have a place so that the rest of the project, everything can just tidy, it stays tidy, and I can put it in, whether it's the files, the folder structure, all of those places are there. And from then on, it's just so much easier to get my head around the work rather than focusing on being overwhelmed by the organization.

[B]

I couldn't agree more. Well, it's just like genealogy research, where if you haven't dedicated the places where you'll be putting things before you start, pretty soon they're kind of all over the map. And then you're trying to pull it all back and it's really difficult. So that makes sense. So that could be what, online folders on your computer? That could be file cabinet space. That could be a binder that you've set up just so that you know where you're collecting things.

[C]

Right. So for me, I have a checklist and I use the same checklist at the beginning of every project. And as a side note about that, I feel like when you're beginning a project is also you're excited about it. It's kind of like new love, you know, this is going to be the best, most fun project ever. So it doesn't feel burdensome. To do a little bit of housekeeping at the beginning. Right. Because it's fun. So those buckets for me include the files. So I think of like three major chunks. We have the files, the systems and the processes. So for the files I have, do you want to dive into that now? Just like the major files that I set up. Okay. So one of the first things I set up is my work in process document. This is kind of just a catch all where I capture my notes, any impressions that I have while I'm researching. I love the idea of write as you go. So whenever I see an article or an oral history piece or anything that's an input to my research, I capture those snippets that are interesting. The clips, the quotes, and my impressions. I just dump it all in that work in process document. So that's one major document. Another one that I have is a document where I put all of my transcripts, because I always start with interviews. And I want all of my interview transcripts to be in one giant document so it's searchable. So that's my document number two. The third one is a timeline. The timeline is basically the scaffolding that I'll hang everything else on. So those are some of the major documents. And then I have my folder structure, just basic folders. You can set up yours however you want. And I have my electronic folders as well as my print folders. I keep three ring binders and have a hard copy of almost everything. Especially if it's a client project. I'll give them those binders at the end.

[B]

Oh, that makes sense. Now, how do you decide what the scope of the project is going to be? Because I know for many of us we've done a tremendous amount of research, but it can't all fit in one project usually. How do you decide that? And is that an important thing to do up front?

[C]

Absolutely. Setting the scope and it's one of the hardest things. Right. And I would also say it's one of the things that will shift through the project. How often have you thought the scope was going to be something small over your life? That's usually how I start out. Oh, this is gonna be a little fun little project. And then it grabs ahold of me and it won't let me go. And I find it is with me for the next few years. That's usually how it goes. But deciding on the scope really is important. Like, for example, is this going to be the story of one person? Is this a story of a generation of people?

[D]

Is it.

[C]

The story of a building, is it. I mean, I could go on and on about the types of stories, but usually I like to focus on one person as my main character and tell one story at a time. And then from there, it might be one vignette at a time, one moment at a time.

[B]

How interesting. And so that I can see how that dovetails into your timeline. You're kind of laying out so that there's. I would imagine that, you know, it's some evenness that you haven't skipped over something and realize later, oh, no, I missed that. What format is your timeline in?

[C]

That's such a good question for me. Again, when I first started, I didn't think that, I don't know, I was a storyteller. And so I wasn't as caught up in the names and dates maybe as most traditional genealogists would be. But I soon realized that the timeline is just the absolute backbone. And for me, the timeline format is as simple as possible. I want it to just be a file that I can keep open while I'm working and not have any friction. I don't want to resist it being too fancy or too hard. So I just keep a simple Excel spreadsheet. I just have one row for every date item in a person's life. And every time I encounter a new date, a new maybe or a new article or something like that, I just put in the. That date, the citation for where I got it, the notes about what's included in that, and it's just super crazy simple.

[B]

Perfect. Now, of course, with family stories, I mean, I just think it's always exciting if you, if you still have living relatives who know a piece of the puzzle to get a chance to interview them. And you talk about collecting your materials and really collecting stories via interviewing. Can you expand on that a little bit for us?

[C]

Yes. So we've set up our project. We have our basic buckets. The files are set up. The very first thing I do after I've set up those buckets is interview somebody. Even if there are no living relatives, I want to find out who knows anything about this story. Maybe there's a family historian or family genealogist who's kind of the keeper for this family. I want to talk to them and find out what's in their brain. Or maybe if it's a community story, I want to find out who's the local person that will have the most insight about this story. And I'll just ask them, what do you know? Who should I talk to where should I look? So you might not think of that as an interview, but it really is. And you'll be amazed at what those keepers have in their brains and what they'll be able to give you from a high level overview. And then as you mentioned, Lisa, if there's a living person that has any connection to the story, whether it was their parents, their grandparents, maybe they lived in the place, I absolutely want them to tell their stories and their memories because there's no more enjoyable way to capture a story and no richer way than to capture their language and no better way to get the meat of it, which is the stories.

[B]

Yeah. What's your favorite tool for capturing those kinds of interviews on the fly?

[C]

It depends on whether it's in person or by phone. We have different tools depending on how someone is reachable today. So many of my interviews are via Zoom. And it's amazing that even people that a few years ago would have been reluctant to use that technology have now embraced it after the pandemic. Grandparents are on Zoom so they can connect with their grandchildren. And so that's an easy way where you don't have to drive. Or if distance separates someone, you can get the video, the audio, and with a professional membership or a professional plan, you can get the transcript right in Zoom. So that's been a wonderful tool. And if I'm in person, which it's always amazing if you can be with someone in person in their home or in their space. I love a digital recorder and my favorite digital Recorder runs about $50 US it's an Olympus, an Olympus WS8. I have the 852, but I think it's now up to about the 882 or 883. If you're getting it online, just get whatever is like the most recent model. But there are other digital recorders. Sony makes a good one, but I just love that mid price point digital recorder. But I also have an app on my phone and if I don't happen to have a digital recorder in my pocket, I will. There's always an app on my phone.

[B]

Yeah, that's becoming more and more. It seems like the go to. I just recently bought movo wireless microphones which is really nice. It could be a companion to the writing project. If you're going to do a little video or you want to use the audio in some other way. Having a little microphone clip to each person, you get such better sound quality. It's amazing that your phone can do it.

[C]

It is amazing having little clip on mics, and they're not overly expensive. And it is amazing how much better the audio quality gets. And if that's one piece of advice, I would say invest in the audio quality, because a person really comes to life when you hear their voice. And people will forgive bad video, but they won't forgive bad audio.

[B]

And that's true.

[C]

You know this probably more than anybody, Lisa, as a podcaster, but it doesn't take a lot of money to make a huge improvement in how someone sounds.

[B]

Well, here you're already talking about bringing a lot of stuff together. Perhaps somebody's already done a bunch of research. Now they've conducted a few more interviews. We have the timeline guiding us. How do you recommend that they actually start putting that narrative together?

[C]

Yeah, so we talk about that work in process document, where you start capturing your impressions and your thoughts and when I actually start the writing process. So let's say I've got all my impressions and at least enough. Enough in my head that I'm ready to start writing. I do a life story pretty well straight up along the timeline. I'll just start capturing the vignettes that I want to cover from beginning to end. And that's a basic outline. Right. So my outline kind of follows the timeline. And I don't usually get too fancy with the order in which I will structure that story. So that's pretty basic. I just start writing it in order, and then once I've cranked out a first draft, then I look at what I have, and then I start looking for the emotional heart of the story. I look for those moments that I really want to amp up. I look for pacing. And that's when I use more of a storyboard to help me make sure that the emotional pacing of the story meets all of the sort of, again, pacing that you would want that would make a story satisfying to readers. So that's kind of an editing process that I do once I have the broad narrative captured. Does that make sense?

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

And you've used the word a couple times. Vignette. I'd love to have you expand on that a little bit because I think it's such a wonderful way to make writing a little more bite size, which helps it not be so overwhelming. Tell us more about what these vignettes are.

[C]

Yes, I am so glad you asked that question, because really, vignettes are what bring the story to life. So a vignette, a definition would be just a short little self contained story in which something happens. Okay, so the difference between a vignette and just a. A memory. A memory might sound like when we were kids, we used to go down to the railroad tracks and we would put pennies on the railroad tracks and have the train smash it. We used to, we often. We would. Those are kind of broad memories about time and place. A vignette is a little story when something happened. So you would start a vignette like one day in 1982, my brother and I went down to the railroad tracks. And can you hear how that sounds different? On this day, something is going to happen. That's interesting. And vignettes are the best way to write life stories because they help you decide how much to include and how much not to include. Right. When you're telling a little story about that day, you need to set the time and the place and who's there. And you want it to have a beginning and a conclusion. Right. Something happens and then there's an ending to the. The story and hopefully maybe a lesson that you learned or something that changed your life in some way. Right. Something. Something good about this particular day.

[B]

Yeah, that makes total sense. And as you're talking about that, I'm visualizing, oh, people might have photographs or there might be a record or a newspaper article about what happened that day. There could be a lot of content. And we, I guess we probably can't include everything. We're going to be tempted that we want to. How do you decide? Do you have a criteria for what makes the cut in your book and what doesn't?

[C]

Yes, and that's such a good question. Right. Because we have so much detail often in our research. Well, it's usually one way or another. We have way too much or almost nothing.

[B]

Right?

[C]

Yeah, but often with our research, we just have so much good stuff to share. And my criteria is, does it serve the story does. And I'm looking for what I call the well chosen detail. One detail that sort of stands in for all the rest that really brings it to life. So these details would include the description of the person and those descriptions you want to be to help bring the person to life. Things about their looks, but also about their personality, their mannerisms, the way that they dressed. So you have details about a person. You have details about the setting, the time, the place, the era, the personality, the tone. And then you have details that relate to the plot line. Right. You might include a detail early in the story. Let's say it's a whole book. You want to plant certain details so that you can call back to them later. So details that Relate to the plot. I like that.

[B]

That brings continuity to it, doesn't it?

[C]

That's absolutely right. And readers love callbacks. So if you're going to include a detail, make sure it's important for some reason. Don't just include it for no good reason at all. So just enough so that the readers can fill in the rest. You don't want to go on and on with descriptive detail.

[B]

And would that be the same criteria you would use in selecting photographs, images, things that are going to illustrate this if you are gonna be including those kinds of items?

[C]

Absolutely. You know, early on when you're doing your research, you're kind of gathering everything, because you may not even know what details or what photos are going to be relevant later until you've really written the story. So at first you're just kind of gathering everything and stuffing them in those buckets. Later, though, you'll include those details or those photos that really bring it to life and that illustrate everything else. And photos are such a great way prompt stories and memories as well. So as you're doing the gathering process, be sure to use photos as story prompts, both for yourself and in your oral history as well.

[B]

In the article, you have a list of tools of the writing trade, and there's a wide range of things because a writer does need so many different things, from scanning items to being able to create graphics backing up their files. I'd love to have you share what some of your favorites are. And of course, I can just see from the list, many of these all have, at this point, AI somehow built into them. It's part of the functionality of the tools themselves. And so I'd love to have your thoughts on AI and the role that it's playing in creating a writing project like this.

[C]

Oh, gosh, yes, AI has become such a helpful assistant. But before we talk about how to use AI, let's talk about how not to use AI. The first rule I would say is never delegate your voice, right? Your unique phrasing, don't polish it up and scrub out your voice. Because your language, the way you really speak and the way you write is so much more interesting in its imperfections. So don't let AI. You might look at it and say, oh, that sounds so much more professional. And sure, you can clean up some grammar and you can clean up the punctuation. Let it do that, but don't let it take away the personality, even in the imperfections. I'm finding I'm leaving more imperfections in my writing than I used to just so it doesn't sound like AI. So we want to keep our voice. But one of the things I'm having AI help me with a lot is the timeline. So let's start by saying you've, you've done an interview, you have it run a transcription. Right. So whether it's you run it through a transcription tool like Zoom will give you an automatic transcription. My go to transcription tool that I just really like. I don't get paid by them or anything, but I really like happyscribe. The transcripts just come out so clean and beautiful and they, it detects who the speakers are. You can edit the transcript and listen to it right in their interface. So it's just become such a helpful tool compared to back in the day when I used to have to use a dictation machine and a foot pedal. So that's come a long way. And then so you run a transcript, you can have AI write in Happy Scribe or another AI program give you a summary of the transcript, which is helpful. And then I have AI extract the timeline. For me, I have a prompt that says pull every date, every major life event. Give it. Don't make any stuff up, don't make anything up. Pull the actual events and then give me a bullet point of the events and give me a citation of where you got it, the timestamp. And then format that citation in Chicago Manual of style. Wow.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

How much more we can get done and put more of the energy into the creativity side of it because it's doing some of these task oriented things. It's, it's really truly amazing.

[C]

It, it is. I mean that timeline used to take me so much manual effort and now to just have it do it at a push of a button and have the citations formatted. I mean it's just a joy. Now I, I do double check everything. Then I copy and paste it into my transcript document, into my Excel document.

[B]

So Rhonda, here we are knee deep in our, in our writing. Where specifically are you doing your writing? What tools are you using to pull that all together?

[C]

Yeah, that's a great question. So if the project is relatively simple, I will just use a basic Word Doc or a Google Doc if it's. And by simple I mean maybe the final project is going to be less than 50 pages. With that it's easy enough to just organize using a table of contents and other formats in just a regular document. But if my project is going to be a full book, like it's going to be more complex. I find that Scrivener is so much easier to keep everything organized and moved around. So Scrivener, that's spelled S C R I V E N E R. And Scrivener is really for complex writing projects. And in Scrivener, you have the ability to create a nested outline so you can expand and contract it with as many levels as you want. So it's almost like a folder structure, but within each folder, you have little short vignettes or little sections that you can expand and contract. So you can look at your chapter outlines, your whole book outline, or you can collapse it and only look at a little bit at a time. But then within that, in your writing pane, you have the place where you're actually doing your writing. You also have, like, a notes and a research section. So I can have the full transcript pasted into the notes section, whereas there's in the middle, where I'm writing, I just have this nice blank screen where I'm doing. I'm composing, but on the right, I can be looking at the transcript and the outline, and I can move around those cards just by dragging and dropping sections. So it's just really easy to keep things organized. You can have two sections open at once. I know I'm getting in the weeds about Scrivener, but that's kind of why you would use it for complex projects.

[B]

And when you save that project or export it out, because you want to get it into publication, what format would it be exported as?

[C]

You can export it in several different formats. You can export it as a Word document, a PDF, you could even export directly into, like, a Kindle document. And you can export pieces at a time or the whole thing. It's really powerful in terms of how you want to export.

[B]

Great. Well, you mentioned at the beginning of this time, talking together, that you kind of wish you'd had this article when you first started. What would be some final parting words, something that you could tell our audience that they can keep in mind that. That you maybe wish you had known or that you think will really help set them up for success.

[C]

One is a mindset that attention is the currency of our lives. So we need to keep our stuff organized and when we're working, shut down the distractions, just work. So one of the pieces of advice that I was given by a professional historian was to write the first draft in one sitting. Well, as much as close to one sitting as possible from memory. Oh, yeah, right. But she said, rhonda, you know this story. You've been working on the research, you've internalized it. Don't try to pull everything from all of your research. Just write what you know and get it down as quickly as possible. And then just use a placeholder for any time you need to look up a citation or a quote. That way you won't get bogged down in trying to pull every little thing. Just write it in your own voice, from memory.

[B]

Oh, I love it. What an interesting idea. You know, I was thinking about. We were talking about AI and the role that it's playing in writing, and I love how you were saying that it really is the authenticity of our unique voice with all its flaws and problems, that that's what makes it real. That's what AI just can't do. But I was thinking recently in a project I was working on, when I got all done, I actually fed it back into AI and I asked it to summarize back to give me an outline. And it really kind of was like a proofreader to help me then look at what it thought that I had written and say, oh, my gosh, I think I forgot this. Or, you know, I really was heavy on that one topic, but I didn't really flesh out this. You could actually ask AI to say, what could I include? What could I do to improve this for? And then maybe even describe what kind of audience you're trying to reach.

[C]

Absolutely. In fact, you're getting to my very favorite AI prompt of all time. And that is what am I missing? Yes, because AI has a tendency to tell you you're a genius. You know, it reinforces what you've already done, and it wants to tell you that you're really smart. So I love to ask it, how could I make this better? What am I missing? Is there anything that I can do to improve this? But that. I got that from an entrepreneur who just maniacally in his career was always asking, what am I missing? What am I missing?

[B]

Yeah, that's a great point. I've used that myself, and it's tremendous because it could see something or notice something, and it's working from this amazing base of knowledge that it has been trained on. So why not ask? We don't have to use it if we don't like it. These are all just wonderful ideas, and you have really been generous in sharing your expertise, not only in the article, but here on the podcast. Tell folks where they can find you if they want to learn more about what you do.

[C]

Great. I'm so glad you asked. My website is Evalog Life E V A L O G U E L I F E. I have a ton of free tools there and articles. There's an article on transcription tools, for example, there. So would love to have people connect with me.

[B]

Wonderful. Well, I love connecting with you, and I hope that you'll come back to the podcast soon. Thank you so much, Rhonda.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

This episode is being sponsored by Newspapers.com and here to tell us more about what you can accomplish in your genealogy research using the vast array of newspapers that they have available is Jenny Ashcraft. Welcome back to the podcast, Jenny.

[D]

I'm so happy to be back. Thanks for inviting me.

[B]

Give us a quick idea of the scope of the newspapers that are available.

[D]

[e-mail] well, it's so exciting because it just continues to grow. We have added this year alone, 109 million new pages, and we are the largest online newspaper archive right now. We have about 1.1 billion pages. And these span three centuries. They come from not only the United States, but Canada and the UK and Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Panama. And those international titles are just expanding. And it's easy to use. You can just put in a keyword or a name, and you can use filters and find your ancestors in the paper.

[B]

Have you been using the international collections in your own research?

[D]

I have been having so much fun using the International Collection. This past month, we've added 1.4 million new pages of Irish content. And I have Irish ancestors from Northern Ireland. And I've always had a brick wall. And some of you that have done this research know that so many of those records were destroyed. And, and my brick wall was the Atlantic Ocean. I just couldn't make that jump across water and figure out more about my ancestors. But what I did have was one single record that, that survived that showed that my fifth great grandfather, Hugh Blakely, was born at a place called Board Mills in County Down. And using that single piece of information, I went to newspapers. But I started first at Find a Grave. I went. I knew I went to Board Mills and there's a cemetery, and in that cemetery were handfuls of Blakely graves. So I'm thinking these. These have to be ancestors. They have to be related. But how, I didn't know. And I started looking closely at the images that volunteers have loaded of the headstones. And I was reading the carvings, and they're quite detailed. But it would say things like, Robert Blakely of Carrick made Row. And I am a beginner in Irish research, and I'm thinking, what is Carrick made Row? What is that? A town? What does that mean? And I googled it and there was no results. So I started digging a little more and I discovered that these were townlands or these are kind of like neighborhoods. And the carved name in this headstone was actually an old fashioned way of spelling it. The correct spelling has changed over the years. But taking those townland names and the surname of my ancestors, I put those two keywords in newspapers and I started finding amazing birth records, marriage records, obituaries, everyday stories that kind of helped me figure out who these people were and how they were connected. And I discovered that my immigrant ancestor had eight siblings that were buried in that cemetery that I did not know about. And I figured that out because of newspapers. It was so exciting. I've been having so much fun.

[B]

Oh, I can only imagine. Well, and you make such a great point that different record collections don't have to live in silos, they integrate together. And here you're taking information you're finding in one place and bringing that to newspapers. Pretty exciting.

[D]

Well, it was, and I discovered that. So I had the, my immigrant ancestor, the one that came to America, had a sibling that went to Canada. And I started searching Canadian papers and I would put in keywords like Blakely, the surname, and county down in Canadian papers. And I was finding information about that, that little branch of the tree that moved to Canada. And then I went down to the US papers and I was putting in Blakely and Carrick, Mary Row and County down and some of those keywords and it was taking me back to Irish papers and all of these pieces were coming together that I've never been able to connect before. And it's just, it's been so fun.

[B]

Yeah. And I imagine if you put in a modern day spelling of a location, you might feel like you got nothing and there's nothing there. But here you did some digging and found out that there was a previous way to spell it and that unlocks things. So it's never impossible, I guess we should say to, to dig further and to be.

[D]

Keep digging. And honestly, the modern spelling, I will tell you, I put that in as well and I found even more search matches. And so just try every keyword variation. Blakely is spelled in many different ways. And so I would use wildcards, you know, in my search of the name and try to pick up results that might include the variations of the spelling of this name. And I came across one clipping that was so cool. It was in a Belfast paper in 1852 and it was a letter written and signed by eight men to the captain of a ship. And they said, we recently took a journey from Belfast to Quebec on your ship and were treated with the utmost kindness. And we want to present you with this gold ring as a sign of gratitude. And it turns out this was their immigration journey. And so now from this clipping, I have the date of the immigration, the name of the ship, who the captain of the ship was, but most importantly was these eight signatures of who my ancestor immigrated with. So this is just a jumping off point for all kinds of research. Who are these people? Are they friends? Are they relatives? And that's what I'm in the process of piecing together. And it's, it's, it's just been awesome.

[B]

Well, everybody listening? If you want a place to really dig deeper, newspapers.com is a place to go. Go check out newspapers.com and we'll have a link in the show notes. Always great to talk to you. Thanks for the inspiration.

[D]

Jenny, thanks a Happy hunting.

[C]

And newspapers.

[A]

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Family Tree Magazine podcast. This is the show from America's number one genealogy magazine magazine. I'll have links to everything that we've talked about today on the show over at the Show Notes page and you can find [e-mail] podcast and there you'll also find a huge back catalog of past episodes full of topics that are going to help you in your genealogy research. And when you stop by the website, be sure to sign up for our free newsletter. That really is the perfect way to stay in touch touch with Family Tree magazine and get all the latest and greatest news plus the announcements of each and every new podcast episode. I'm Lisa Louise Cook and I hope that you'll come by and visit me at my website, genealogygems.com and there you will find the Genealogy Gems podcast and a link over to our Genealogy Gems YouTube channel. So until next time, have fun climbing your family tree.