Happy New Year! The holidays were rushed, but wonderful and it’s time for the traditional resolutions for the year before us! I’d prefer to call them goals because that greatly reduces the amount of guilt I’ll feel next December 31 if I don’t reach the full potential of what I want to do. I’ve decided that I want to keep the list short and focus on my most important ideas and try to be more realistic about what I’d like to accomplish this year.
2010 Geneagoals:
1) Planner: I’m going to create a system for my daily planner which will allow me to use those little chunks of time that I find during the day to work on my genealogy. I tend to put things off until I have an entire day to work and that doesn’t come along very often. I also get easily distracted when trying to research at home because there is always some other chore that needs to be worked on. So I’d like to focus on a plan that will allow me to effectively use 15 minute chunks of time so that I’ll be prepared to really jump in when I do get those dedicated genealogy days. Specifically, I’ll be thinking of my lunch time at school as well as the occasional 10-15 minutes that come along because the lesson I’m teaching is shorter than normal or even those 45 minute chunks when students are taking tests. I also have a 25 minute period after school each day that I’m required to be in my classroom. Some days, I actually have everything graded and prepared for the next day and I want to be ready for that. And it seems that I regularly find myself waiting in the car for one of my kids to finish a practice of some sort or another and I’d like to be able to pick up my planner and dive right in.
I plan to create several genealogy forms that will fit in my newly purchased planner so that I can pick it up at any moment and know exactly what I’d like to look for. I had an older planner that I thought I could use, but it was a compact size and I didn’t think that would work well. I only want to create this planner once so I decided to invest in a new planner and I chose the 8 ½ x 5 ½ size. As I create these forms, I intend to put them on my blog so that anyone else who might be interested can have access to them. I’m going to call this section of my blog “Working It Wednesday” and we’ll see how it goes! The first form will be a group sheet and 4 gen chart. Come back on Wednesday to check it out!
2) Maps: I would really like to focus on maps this year – what types of maps are available and how can I use them to find where my ancestors lived based on those INCREDIBLY long descriptions in the deeds I’ve been copying. I’ve always been “directionally challenged” so this will be harder for me than it sounds.
3) Timelines: I got an AWESOME gift for Christmas this year from my mother and it didn’t cost her a thing. She has been packing for weeks to move to a new home and instead of using newspaper to wrap her things in, she was getting end rolls of paper from the local newspaper so she didn’t get the black ink all over her hands. I mentioned that I would have so much fun wallpapering my genealogy room with it and scribbling notes and timelines all over the walls – so guess what I found under my tree? The roll is about 3 feet wide and is several inches thick and I can’t wait to see the uses I can come up with for it. But my specific goal for this roll is to develop timelines for the counties I’m researching as well as for family groups that I’m researching. I like the idea of having these posted in my genealogy room while I’m researching and then rolling them up when I move on to another family. I have bookmarked several web sites that will help me with these timelines and I will use some of my “chunks” of time at school to research new things to add to these timelines. Perhaps I’ll add “Timeline Tuesday” to my blog as well because I seem to be lacking in the tombstone photo area.
So that’s my list! I’m hoping to make great strides in my research this year – but then, who isn’t?
Wishing you great luck in your research in the year to come!
