Find Your Folks: Genealogy Goals

Showing posts with label Genealogy Goals. Show all posts

Friday, January 1, 2010

2010 New Years Genealogy Goals

My goal in 2010 is to complete some of the uncompleted genealogy goals of 2009. (Read more about my progress towards achieving these 2009 goals.)

Additionally, I would like to have more of my writings published in genealogy journals and in a book. I have been researching for 15 years now and have been talking about a book for almost as long. I hope to achieve this goal in 2010.

My motto for the new year is "I'm Gonna Win in 2010."

Assessment of 2009 Genealogy Goals

New Years Day is here again and it’s that magical time of the year to refocus and set new goals. Not only is it a time that people traditionally make resolutions, but it also is a time of reflection about the previous year. I set numerous genealogy goals during the year 2009; some were accomplished and others not. Below is an assessment of my achievement of 2009 goals.

2009 Genealogy Goals

Write

Write, Write, Write! I did a lot of writing for my blog and began writing about my 15 year genealogy career. One thing completed was a timeline of significant accomplishments during this 15 year career.

Write and publish articles for genealogy newsletters and journals. I did not have as many articles published as I planned. I did have two articles published in genealogy journals; both had been originally posted on my Find Your Folks blog. (Penny Candy and Blog Acknowledgement at Church Service.)

Write a book on my family history. (See above in write, write, write section)

Write articles for Find Your Folks blog. 168 postings in 2009 as compared to 104 postings in 2008.

Update, Organize, and Document

Finish organizing my paper files into color folders. I did not complete this task, although I did work on it in 2009.

Declutter and get rid of unnecessary genealogy related papers (printouts, pamphlets, etc.) Still a work in progress.

Organize computerized genealogy files. Still a work in progress.

Update and document all sources in Family Tree Maker Software. Still a wok in progress.

Attend Conferences and Classes

Attend the National Genealogy Society conference in Raleigh, NC in May. I was not able to make it to the conference activities, but I did arrive to Raleigh on Saturday afternoon just before the vendor booths shut down. It was good to browse the booths containing various genealogy products and services.

Attend the Black Genealogy Summit in Indiana in October. I had a blast at this conference and blogged a lot about my experience. I still have more left to write about this conference. Read my postings on the 2009 International Black Genealogy Summit.

Fellowship with Living Descendants

Attend at least two family reunions. Attended the Carroll Family Reunion in July. Also attended the funeral in August of an Aunt and the 100th birthday party of another Aunt in December. Funerals and other family gatherings are also events to meet new family members. I met new family members at both of these events.

Continue to contact living descendants of ancestors in order to find additional family information. I don't think I contacted any new family members, however, several of them discovered me through the Internet and the library.

DNA Testing

Have additional family lines tested to determine their African connection, or relatedness to other families with the same surname. I did not have any DNA testing done in 2009.

Genealogy Presentations

Conduct at least two genealogy workshops. Conducted Four workshops in 2009. June-Oral History Workshop, September-local workshop on African American Genealogy , and October-workshops on blogging at Black Genealogy Summit in Fort Wayne, Indiana and for my local genealogy society.

Blogging and Technology

Continue genealogy blogging and strive to post daily. I still aspire to achieve this goal, but did not achieve it this year.

Learn how to use new blog tools to add to blog. Learned how to add audio through videos. Also purchased a digital voice recorder in which audio can be converted electronically

Learn how to podcast and post to blog. Did not do podcasting, but did add audio through videos. (See above posting)
Continue using Facebook for genealogy social networking sites. Used Facebook and Twitter as tools to promote my blog postings. Through Facebook, I connected with several old classmates from school. Also connected with a few family members in the Pair family.

Explore other new Internet resources that will aid in further advancing genealogy. Set up a YouTube channel and posted one video so far. Video on youtube was discovered from someone from Roots Television, who asked to post my video on this site. Video is now on Roots Television.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

2009 Genealogy Goals

New Years Day is here again and it’s that magical time of the year to refocus and set new goals. Not only is it a time that people traditionally make resolutions, but it also is a time of reflection about the previous year.

I set four genealogy goals during the year 2008 and shared them with the Family Tree Maker genealogy buffs on our website at MyFamily.com.

Finish organizing my paper files into folders and notebooks.
Declutter and get rid of unnecessary genealogy related papers (printouts, pamphlets, etc.)
Write and publish articles for genealogy newsletters and journals.
Organize computerized genealogy files and update and document all findings in FTM.

I did not fully complete all of these goals, however, I did make significant progress on fulfilling goals 1, 2, and 4 Although I did not get around to submitting genealogy articles for publication to fulfill goal #3, my amount of writing increased significantly during 2008 through my discovering of blogging during the earlier part of the year.

Much of the year was spent on organizing my family related genealogy paper files. I am organizing my family files in color file folders; one color for each grandparent (red-maternal grandmother, green-maternal grandfather, yellow-paternal grandmother, and blue-paternal grandfather. I also adopted orange colored folders for my DNA related files.) This color coding file system will be further explained in other blog postings this month. The beauty of this filing method is that I can readily identify which of my four grandparents a file belongs. For some grandparents, I have a lot of paper files, such as for both of my grandmothers. The color coding filing system also allows easy expansion on any of the four lines.

I discovered blogging in February 2008 and began with a PowerPointers Blog. In March, I began the Find Your Folks genealogy blog, and this is where I poured my writing efforts in 2008. At the end of 2008, I had 106 postings on my genealogy blog, as opposed to only seven on the PowerPointer's blog.

For the year 2009, my goal is to continue working on completing the 2008 goals, and to pursue bigger and better genealogy endeavors. Last year was my first time writing down my genealogical goals, and these goals mainly focused on writing, documentation, and organizing genealogy files and data. However, this year’s list is a bit more comprehensive and categorized and I have tried to think of all the multiple components of my genealogy career.