“Lady Astronaut of Mars” by Mary Robinette Kowal (1) is one of my favourite sci-fi series. It takes place in an alternate past, where the space race becomes a matter life and death for humanity. The mantra for the astronauts is “slow is fast.” Wearing their big, bulky spacesuits in low to no gravity makes it difficult for them to get around, and rushing means they may fall over, which slows them down more than if they had just taken their time in the first place.

“Slow is fast” should be a mantra for genealogists as well. Documenting our searches, keeping research logs, and citing our sources all take a lot of time, but having to redo searches is slower. If we’re not documenting things as we go along, we are just doing searches, not research, and we won’t make any progress on our projects, which is slow. Having all the information at your fingertips when you go to write things up is fast.

I’ve talked about using Airtable for research logs in a previous post and I have to say I still really like it. I don’t always have the time to research every day (or even every week or month) and to see clearly where I left off and what I need to do next is helpful. I have a table for each project I’m working on and each has multiple tabs to keep track of different things. Since many of my projects involve DNA, I have a page to keep track of matches and whether or not I’ve messaged them. Another page keeps tracks of dates and what I’ve looked for and what I’ve found —especially important if nothing was found. I also find it a good solution to the “too many tabs open” problem -I can make a page of the links, note why I was looking at them and save them for another day in case I need them again.

Sometimes I get frustrated by the slow pace of my research, but I know I’ll get there eventually. As long as I take my time and focus on doing good research, not just searches, I’ll produce some quality evidence needed to solve interesting mysteries. If you haven’t found a good way to keep research logs, I hope you’ll keep trying until you do. Slow is fast.

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1) Mary Robinette Kowal, “Lady Astronaut of Mars,” Tor (https://www.tor.com/2013/09/11/the-lady-astronaut-of-mars/ : accessed 10 May 2022). This is the short story that the series is based on.

2) Jennifer Wiebe, “Airtable for Genealogy,” Jennealogie (https://maltsoda.wordpress.com/2021/08/03/airtable-for-genealogy/ : accessed 10 May 2022).