01 January 2012

2012 Family History Resolutions

Every year I see many genealogy miracles. I solve multiple end-of-line problems, progress in my own skills by leaps and bounds, and contribute to the family history community in important ways.

This year I've decided to go with the trend among other GeneaBloggers and write some goals so that you--my readers--can hold me accountable, and perhaps I will accomplish a few of the goals that I usually set on the back burner.
  1. Name 10% of my 25,046 ambiguous genealogy files (pictures, historic documents, scanned genealogy charts, letters etc.) using the "Surname, Given Name(s) - Title (Optional Short Description) Year" format. Example: McCormick, Michael W - Diploma 2011; Some of my files have searchable names while other files still have consecutive numbering that was assigned by digital camera data or date scanned information. While scanning is the more essential step, I hope to get the files organized before I turn 120 or the world ends in December. I'm hoping the world doesn't end.
  2. Transcribe 200 pages of family letters; Many of the letters that came into our possession have never been read by anyone in my immediate family and are still in original paper form or scanned only. Transcribing will give me a good motivation to read them and will make it easier for others to Control+F (search) for data in the future.
  3. Go back at least one additional generation/individual on 5 distinct end-of-line ancestors; this should be the easiest goal as I can't imagine wanting to do anything else more. 
  4. Excel in a new full-time genealogy related career; While I've been working in the field since 2007, I graduated with a Bachelors of Science last month and moved to Provo to start a new career there.
  5. Become an AG through ICAPGen; I'm within 70 hours of the application hour requirements--while I am well over the total hourly requirement, I lacked sufficient experience in one of the sub-regions. I'm partly through the four generation project.
  6. Begin a Masters program in genealogy; I recently applied for the October 2012 postgraduate certificate program with University of Strathclyde.
Perhaps I will update you on my status quarterly and this may give me a chance to track and/or modify my goals. I'm not promising anything. Six goals is enough.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, Michael. Great goals! I'm sure if anyone can accomplish them you can! Keep us posted. I can only hope to get so far!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your kind and thoughtful comments.