My 2014 Resolutions - for Genealogy, of course.

I do make genealogy resolutions each year and review them mid-year. I see that many more genealogists are publishing theirs. We all hope, I think, that going public will make us more likely to follow through with our plans.

The last few years one of my resolutions has been about not taking on too many things to do at once. I am getting better at that, but new projects are always tempting. And, I find that even one new project, or something new I need to learn makes me more enthusiastic about the on-going projects and responsibilities that just must be done.

First, for 2014 I've accepted the 52 Ancestors Challenge started by Amy Johnson Crow of No Story Too Small. I do want to blog more about family and other people, so I've accepted it for both this blog and my Newdale, Manitoba, Canada genealogy site.

This first resolution fits into Jen Baldwin's #genchat SMART resolution challenge as the 52 Ancestors challenge's objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timebound. I'll blog here about someone (or something related to someone) who's connected to me once a week for 52 weeks. Sounds easy, eh! And additionally it will get me regularly scanning more photographs and documents.

My second 2014 resolution is easy. I resolve to attend RootsTech 2014 in February. In fact, I'm  almost all set for that, including my Family History Library research plan. 

My third resolution this year is to work on researching and reconnecting with my few known Australian relatives. This is a much less structured resolution but will involve my learning more about Australia than I know now which should be fun! I've already been to the BC Genealogical Society's Walter Draycott Library and started to review which guides, indexes and journals there will be most useful to me.

That's it. Wish me smooth sailing please. 

Genealogy Resolutions - 2012

I know, January 2012 is half over and I've not even set out my New Year's Resolutions yet.

As far as last year went, I did keep up with most of my resolutions, but sometimes that meant running, running, running, and sometimes my resolve just got left behind. And looking back at 2011's Resolutions, I see 2010 went a bit too fast for me too.

So I'm only making a couple of resolutions this year, however, since many of the previous years' resolutions were designed to instill and enhance good genealogical habits, wherever possible, I'll continue following up with them.

1. This first resolution I did make early in December, and asked a friend to repeat it to me this year as needed:

" I will not promise/volunteer to do 3 things at once. I will not promise/volunteer to do 3 things at once. I will not..."

Not that I can't still do 3 things at once, but it's usually that news-to-me 4th thing that just has to be done that gets my schedule tied up in knots.

2. Pick my one practical genealogy project for 2012 to focus on. Usually that's been a family line or sometimes just one individual.

This year, because the 1940 US census will be released in April, I decided I'd focus on the family of Alfred White and Emma Cox/Cocks. Originally from England, they emigrated to Canada in 1871 with their 2 children, Alfred, and Eliza Imray, in an East-End Emigration (London) group. While living in Ontario, they had several more children (Mary Elizabeth Miles, Ernest Albert, Joseph Floyd, Florence, and John), then emigrated to the USA where they had at least one more child, Harry.

First I'll be gathering and assessing all the information I do have on the family; then I'll be preparing myself to search for them in 1940. I'm hoping to find some descendants yet.

3. Pick one personally pleasurable genealogy project for 2012.

I've chosen to 'index' my oldest books, the ones that belonged to other family members first. I'll scan and describe the covers and any inscriptions or other finds, I'll do a little writeup and print these out and I'll do at least one a week. This should get me through these by the next new year.

Most of these books have been in my personal library since I was a girl and I've used them in my family genealogy sometimes. For example, where someone, like my mum, wrote her address in various books, I've listed and investigated those.

Not all inscriptions are as straightforward as addresses though. I thought I'd start with one of those in a book once my Na's - The Golden Book of Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Selections for the Year (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, Ltd., 1935). Seemed an appropriate start as this includes a selection for each day of the year. More about this book later.

And yes, for my faithful readers,

4. I promise to blog much more (and more regularly) in 2012.

Like some others, I've chosen a word for 2012. That word is OPPORTUNITY, to remind me to look for those, when things don't go the way I expect. I do hope I won't be drinking only lemonade this year.

New Year's Genea-Resolutions - 2010 - Carnival of Genealogy

New Year Arithmetic

It only takes one figure more to change the sum of Time's long score;

To your life's record may it add Good Fortune and subtract the bad:

And as with others you divide may Best of Luck be multiplied!

Post Card, unused. Made in U.S.A. Marked 402 but no publisher or artist's name, except a K circled. Divided back; private collection.

New Year’s Resolutions! is the topic for this Carnival of Genealogy.

Yesterday, Tara Calishain of Research Buzz wrote a post about Wolfram/Alpha that prompted me to calculate the number of days I've already spent on the earth - 22,314 days! Where did they all go? Or better yet, what did I do with them?

No wonder so many of us think about resolutions each year.

(I recommend following ResearchBuzz, by the way, great info about search engines, and about on-line information collections. Yes, it still is Follow Friday.)


As usual, I’ve written out a few resolutions for this brand new year, and from what I hear, a record number of other genea-bloggers have been doing this too. It will be most interesting to see what everyone’s plans are.

I write out objectives for myself for almost every week as we go through the year. These include genealogy, but I try to keep my main goals for each year to a few - all, I hope, manageable ones.

Again, as in 2009, I expect 2010 to be fairly busy – mostly with genealogy, but not necessarily my own. I’m very active in my local genealogical society right now as President and Editor of the British Columbia Genealogical Society and I took on more genealogy teaching last fall at the Burnaby Community Centred College for the Retired. I enjoy these activities and believe I'm making the world a bit better place for genealogy, but I will set aside time too for my personal genealogy research as I did in 2009.

For 2009, my personal genea-resolutions were to:

1. Scan more photos and scrap more photos - about my brother and myself. Attend two scrap nights; schedule some time for fun photos to mix with the older ones.

2. Blog on a more regular schedule; have two posts and two 'Wordless' posts in reserve for each blog by mid-February.

3. Host a Carnival of Genealogy.

4. Have some Newdale pages on-line by 9 February 2009.

5. Produce Islay CDs as family gifts.

6. Follow DearMYRTLE's organization checklists.

7. Save trees and energy by using less paper! Buy two power bars to use in my office area.

Considering my sometimes crowded schedule, I feel I did quite well in 2009, although one goal had to be postponed as I’ll mention below.

For 2010, my goals in brief are

1. To finish scanning my older family photographs (and some documents) and to scrapbook some more.

2. To have research plans for local repositories and libraries on the go each month, and to be ready for research in Toronto, Ontario in May.

3. To continue blogging, and to host at least one Carnival, if possible.

4. To work towards getting my Newdale pages up on-line and to produce some CDs (ones I’m happier with) to give to family, and to put more photographs on-line to share.

5. To continue working on organization and energy-saving too (mine and the world’s).

Here's a bit more about my 2010 goals with a recap of 2009.

1. Scanning and scrapbooking 2010: Last year, I wanted to scan more of my older family photographs and I certainly did that, although due to other commitments I wasn’t able to attend many Scanfests. I realize I’ve gotten a long ways with this project, but I do miss those Scanfest chats. I intend to attend more in 2010 and to finish these scanning projects. I was given a digital frame for Christmas, (thank you, S!) and will soon have more ancestors on my mantel.

I did do more scrapbooking in 2009; I even attended those two crops. I tried a few digital projects, but didn’t like this nearly as well as working with ‘real’ things, so won’t likely pursue that. Will keep working on my vintage scrapbooking in 2010 as I can. You might see some projects yet here on my blog.

2. Travel plans 2010 – I didn’t make it out of Canada this year, but I had fun and learned a lot at the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia conference in Medicine Hat, Alberta and at other sessions in British Columbia, like the British Columbia Historical Federation conference in Nelson, and the Megan Smolenyak seminar in Surrey put on by the British Columbia Genealogical Society (BCGS).

This year, I’m looking forward to a number of local events already, including the Stephen A. Morse seminar in March (co-sponsored by the Jewish Genealogical Institute of British Columbia and the BCGS - details soon) and the Women’s History Fair in April, both in Vancouver. Then in May there’s the BC Historical Federation conference in Vancouver and the Ontario Genealogical Society conference in Toronto which I’m planning to attend. While in Toronto, I’ll be researching my BATTICE, PEEL and ROGERS, WHITE families at the City of Toronto Archives and the Ontario Archives.

3. Blogging 2010: I continued to blog regularly about genealogy, here at CanadaGenealogy and at The Graveyard Rabbit of British Columbia. I especially enjoyed doing the Sombre Sunday and Treasure Chest Thursday posts and will be continuing these.

I participated in a good number of Blog Carnivals, and was a Carnival host, in March for the Carnival of Central and Eastern Europe’s on ‘Female Ancestors’ and for September’s Carnival of Genealogy on ‘Family Reunions’. I’ve joined two blog rings, Blogging For Ancestors and the Geneabloggers WebRing. Participating in both rings and carnivals introduces me to many other bloggers and readers and, usually, is a lot of fun. I've been getting many more comments on my posts, and I am regularly reading other blogs and commenting on them in turn. I also wrote an article for Shades of the Departed, and participated in A Festival of Postcards.

I’d like to take time to blog more and to participate in more Carnivals in 2010 and will work on scheduling myself so I can do that. I do have some blog posts in reserve now, so that’s a bit less ‘pressure’. I’d like to encourage others to participate in blogging and other on-line activities more during 2010. (I love Twitter! and it blends well with blogging.) I started a British Columbia genealogy group on GenealogyWise this year and I have some ideas for CanadaGenealogy in 2010 which you will hear about later. As an example, I just recently noticed that someone else in BC is interested in guest blogging and I’m going to investigate that for myself and for CanadaGenealogy.

4. Sharing more information on-line 2010: My Newdale web pages are still on hold, for reasons beyond my control at the moment. This is the only 2009 resolution I really had to leave undone, but, I have done more research, scanned many more photographs, and in 2009, even found ‘new to me’ historical postcards which I’ll be showing soon enough. When things don’t work out when and how one wants, I think it’s important to be flexible enough to move on to work on another goal for the time being, so that’s what I did. I made some photograph CDs, but wasn’t that happy with them, so I’ll be working on that again. And, after attending the BCGS fall series on ‘Writing Your Own History’ with Moira Connor, I intend to produce at least one booklet on my family this year.

5. Organization and energy saving 2010: I did follow DearMyrtle’s Organization Checklists as posted for the first half of the year and used some of her older checklists the rest of the year. Of course these are all on-going exercises!

And, I’ve tried to be conscientious about saving paper and ink and electrical energy too. I think I’m well into those habits now, although I still have some odd piles of paper to worry about....oh, well.

I’m now using a newer, smaller backup drive and late in 2009, I bought a new laptop which I’m still learning about, and, for Christmas, I received a netbook. (Thank you to J, C, C & S!) This was in my 2009 plans (and dreams). Having the netbook may radically change the way I do research even at local archives and libraries as I am always on public transit and hesitate to carry my heavier laptop every time. This netbook is so light I imagine it will be with me much of the time, but it will certainly be a blessing when I’m away researching.

I’ll be spending a bit of time early in the new year ‘organizing’ myself with the three computers. (For those who want to know, the new laptop is Amy, the netbook is Minnie - such an apt name for a little computer. My older, trusty everyday laptop’s name is Maggie. Amy was my Na, my maternal grandmother; Minnie and Maggie were her sisters. There is a really old desk top here too – but she says her name is ‘just old & tired’.)

I routinely write out my ‘to dos’ for each week which includes my genealogy to dos – documents to look up, things to order – but I’m going to keep a fuller descriptive list in front of me each week this year – drawn from my research plans. Robert Ragan of Treasure Maps Genealogy (he’s the Pajama Genealogy Guy) wrote an article recently on how genealogists can best use personal planners. I’m going to try his ideas, so instead of a list of unrelated activities, I’m going to include a small block of tasks for the week based on who or which family I’m working on during that time. I think it will give me a better perspective for the week, if nothing else. (And I just got a fun pad of coloured planning notes – for accomplishments – Today, Tomorrow, Weekend, Near Future, Someday, and, Maybe Never! I’ll be using that too.) That 'Someday' will keep me positive and the 'Maybe Never!' will keep me smiling!

Now, do tell, what are your genealogy goals for this year?