Happy New Year!
I learned a long time ago that I am much more likely to achieve my New Year’s Resolution if I only choose one. I think it through and carefully select one DO-able goal that I think will have an impact on other areas of my life. They are usually simple goals like floss every day, write in my journal every day, take a shower and get ready for the day before my husband leaves (that goal was set after my youngest was born).
This year is no exception. I have chosen one loose resolution – I’m still working on defining it exactly.
Aside from my one New Year’s Resolution, I usually choose a few shorter term goals – goals in areas of my life that just need a bit of re-focus.
This year, one of those goals is about Family History.
In 2015 I have set the goal to post at least once each week on my blog. Because, posting about my genealogy experiences definitely improves them. I think things through more carefully if I write about them. I make connections with people. I learn from my readers. I attract distant cousins who always enrich what I know. I read what other people write about genealogy. Blogging about genealogy has been good and I want a little more good in my genealogy life.
So that is my genealogy goal for 2015 – at least one blog post on here each week.
I have a Genealogy Wish List for 2015 as well:
- Order the homestead papers for Henry and Alice Hyde.
- Order the homestead application for Frank and Alice Duval.
- Acquire the Estate record for Alice Hyde.
- Order the Civil War Records for Landrie Brouillette & Seth Potter Maffit.
- Make ANY kind of progress on John Costello – my great grandfather and SERIOUS brick wall.
- Make a decision on a DNA test/company and have John Costello’s two living sons (in their 80s) take the test.
- Buy a higher quality scanner.
- Finish scanning the many photos Grandma gave me.
- Clean out my hard drive.
- Buy Dragon Naturally Speaking (is that what it’s called?) and use it to transcribe the interviews I have recorded.
- Find someone to rescue the old cassette recordings my mom gave me to care for.
- Order a handful of the long list of English records I want. (Pricey)
- Resolve the conflict in Family Tree on familysearch regarding my James Young, my 4th great grandfather. This requires a surname study for the parish. Two James Youngs married two Janet Robertsons two years apart and each had a son James Young. Oy!
- Prove or disprove that Landrie Brouillette and Emilie Fortin are the parents of Esther Brouillette.
- Organize my family photos, documents, videos. Make backups.
- Participate in the 52 Ancestors challenge again. (No pressure, just when it fits in.)
- Join Daughters of Utah Pioneers.
- Attend RootsTech.
- Learn more about the Alaskan adventures of my family members.
- Visit BYU and the FHL in SLC more often.
I could keep going and going. But I know that setting ONE goal – writing one blog post each week – is DO-able and it will help me chip away at that big old list there.
So, how about it?
What is your ONE Genealogy goal for 2015?
I challenge you to set ONE goal and DIG IN!
PS – that super cool photo up there is my Great Grandpa Frank Duval. Here it is with the back of the photo too.
Welcome back Amberly! Missed your posts and looking forward to seeing your weekly posts this year. I’m continueing with the 52 Ancestors and have them all planned out. One thing I really want to get done is to attach and correctly cite all of the birth, marriage and death records that I have found for my WV relatives.
Hi Cathy, thank you! I’ve missed reading your posts as well. It’s taken me a few months to get my feet solidly under myself with my new responsibilities – well, as solidly under me as I can get them – so I’m hoping to get back into a good blogging habit.
I love the two goals you mentioned. Attaching and correctly citing sources is such an awesome goal! I need to work on that in a few areas of my tree too. 😉 All those old paper files need some digitizing, organizing and source citing.
Very good idea and a great photo to go with it! All the best in 2015.
Thank you Donna! All the best to you as well.
I definitely want to blog more actively too, but a simple, single goal for me would be to get my dad’s collection of 35-mm slides digitized. All the best for 2015!
Thank you Ian, all the best to you as well. That is a great goal. Do you have a plan?
Not a very good plan to get blogging more regularly. I do feel I need to refocus on the theme of my blog; more about my own search for self-realization and going forward and slightly less on family history, perhaps. In terms of the slides, I think that will be pretty easy if I use a slide digitization service. It seems to be getting less and less expensive…
Digitization services do seem to have come a long way for sure. Best of luck choosing one to suit your needs.
Have you talked to anybody about Dragon? I just wondered because I’ve heard bad things about it, but maybe that was an old version?
I have. A friend of mine used it to transcribe several tapes of interviews she made with an Aunt and she said it was great. She let it do it’s thing and then went through the transcript to clean it up. She said the cleaning up needed was minimal. I plan to ask her some questions about it again before I buy – i.e. which version she used, if she has used it again etc. Great question!
Shortly before Christmas, Legacy Family Tree did a webinar: Can You Hear Me Now? Voice Recognition Software for Genealogists. It’s in their archives: http://www.familytreewebinars.com/download.php?webinar_id=223. Luana Darby, the presenter, had all kinds of wonderful stuff to say about it, as well as many tips for using it in genealogy.
Oh! Good to know, thanks for the tip. I’ll look into that before I buy something. 🙂
Happy New Year, Amberly! It is good to set goals. My advice is to stay flexible. Sometimes it takes more than a week for a good post to come together so if something needs a little extra time go with the creative flow.
Great advice EmilyAnn! I always appreciate your kind and gentle perspective. 🙂