Sunday, December 31, 2017

Genealogy Goals - 2017 Reviewing - 2018 Setting

Last year I set some genealogy goals for myself, now it’s time to review them and see how I did.

I am still working on the Do-over and will continue in the coming years.  I want my tree to be as accurate as possible.  As I re-evaluate information I continue to find new information.  I will also continue to maintain my online trees as cousin bait.  Last year they provided contacts in both Norway and Germany. I am still working on the “Do Over” and will continue working on a different family each month. I have made a promise to my self to enter a source citation for each fact or person I add to the tree.
I will once again participate in the Family History Writing group sponsored by Lynn Palermo in February.  Last year I got off to a pretty good start, but found some additional research was needed to continue the story.  I have done the research and, so I will resurrect the story and hope to finish it and publish it here. Tis proved to be an epic fail as I did not participate this past year, but I probably won’t participate this year as I have decided to join the 52 ancestors in 52 weeks meme. I hope spreading the writing over the course of the year will work better for me.
On the DNA front, I am currently the manager of 5 kits and have had some minor success in connecting my brother and a known first cousin to another branch of my grandfather's family.  The most common recent ancestor was my grandfather's grandfather.  He was born in Norway in 1817.  I will be watching and re-watching DNA seminars this year and I now have Blaine Bettinger's book "Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy" so maybe this year I will become more comfortable with DNA analysis. I feel much more comfortable with DNA after concentrating on it this past year. When I went to Jamboree, I concentrated on taking in as many lectures on DNA as I could. I also watched all of the DNA webinars at Legacy Family Tree, and read Blaine Bettinger’s book. As a bonus, I did a cruise to Alaska and was able to hear Blaine present on DNA an additional five times. As a result, I have identified my son-in-law’s birth parents using both traditional genealogy and DNA. I have also found known branches of our family tree which we have lost contact with over time.
I am making tentative plans to go back to the Family History Library in April and the SCGS Jamboree in June.  My trip to Salt Lake was a wonderful adventure and as is typical, I made substantial progress on a brick wall on Saturday afternoon! (my last day) I hope to go to Jamboree for both its educational opportunities and fellowship.  I may also see my cousin while in California. I did return to Salt Lake City and the Family History Library in April. Once again, I was seeking the two mysterious Swedes in among my husbands ancestors. They are still elusive but, I have hopes that new clues and DNA will help to find their birthplaces. At Jamboree I did concentrate on DNA as I mentioned but I was also a wonderful feeling of fellowship and meeting old and new friends. I was lucky to spend an evening with both my cousin and her daughter in addition to another evening with a high school classmate. September brought with it a cruise to Alaska with the group from Heritage Books. We had great weather for late September and the group was very friendly with well planned activities. There were lectures covering many areas of genealogy and I came home re-inspired.
My greatest fail this year was with blogging.  Far from the weekly posts I had hoped to do, I only managed a total of nineteen blog posts.  I don’t know if I need different ideas or just more determination.  I guess I better figure it out. At Jamboree I did attend Michael John Neill’s presentation on blogging and got several great ideas, then Cindy Ingle further inspired me with tips on publishing to correct an error. Last year I posted 20 blog posts this year it will be 21, so while it is an improvement of one more post I want it to still be a bigger improvement. This will be the eighth year of my blog and I hope it is the best.
One last goal is to finally finish my daughter's application to join the DRA.  There is one loose end to connect in the 1810-1830-time period.  That will probably require land and tax records. Unfortunately, the DAR application was left behind In the excitement of DNA testing. I resolve to finish it this year.
So last year there were some successes and some misses. This year I also planned the programs for the monthly meetings of our local genealogy group and volunteered in the genealogy room of the library on most Sunday afternoons. When possible I also volunteer at the local Family History Center.

Bring on 2018!!

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