It’s January 30, the last day of this month’s 30 x 30 challenge. I’m curious: How did it go? Did you find that the challenge being in January helped a little? I think it helped me because I wanted to start the year off right.
Were you able to meet your goal? Even if you weren’t, did the challenge help you do more than you would have done without the challenge?
I had a great first 3/4 of the month. As I mentioned in the mid-month check in, I manged to research every day the first half of the month, even if I wasn’t able to put in a full 30 minutes. But I hit a snag with a trip I took on January 22. I was gone for five days and I was able to research only two of them. And then once I got home, I had to deal with a family health crisis (my brother in Walla Walla is very ill) which necessitated a last-minute trip there, so genealogy is completely off my radar.
But I feel very good about the work I was able to do and once life returns to normal I hope to hop back in. I’ll be going to Salt Lake City at the end of February for RootsTech and I hope to spend some time at the Family History Library, so that will be a big boost!
Please let me know in the comments how your challenge went!
Janine-I too am a Mac person and right now I’m re-learning Reunion, so I’ve spent hours rebuilding my database. I didn’t keep track of my hours spent on genealogy in January, but it was a lot. I was on ‘vacation’ from Dec 36 through Jan 10, so that interfered with my ‘running start’ to the New Year. But I’m learning (still) to craft my own citations to sources, inputting them into Reunion, and reading genealogy-related books, but sometimes life gets in the way! You are my inspiration to persevere!!
Carol
Carol, it sounds like you had a very productive month. Bravo!
I research almost daily, setting aside late afternoon for usually an hour or more (I’m retired). Mostly, it’s on Ancestry, where I rarely use other family trees. But I find the ease of that kind of research has become almost addictive, and I’ve avoided the more difficult task, to me, of organizing the information in more useable forms, such as my application to the Mayflower Society or ways in which my future generations will enjoy learning about their ancestors. I’ve now started a paper file for each (direct line) family group, which is helping me notice where documents (b-m-d) are missing, or other information that will fill out the lives of those people. And yes, it helps that it’s January and I’m in Oregon where we’re getting a lot of rain!
Trish, an hour a day is fantastic (and enviable)! It sounds like you found a system that will work well for you. That’s great.
Sorry to hear about your brother. Hope he is improving. I needed this challenge to jump start my genealogy research. I was able to spend at least 30 minutes a day. In the beginning, I had spend a few days to determine where to start my research. I did start to keep a daily log on my genealogy research. I use the free form and it seems easier to use than a detail template. I focused on entering the 1870 and 1880 census.
That’s great, Jerry. So glad to hear you’re back in the saddle!
I, too, am sorry to hear about your brother and hope his recovery goes well. The 30 x 30 challenge was a great incentive for me, as I started the new year with the word “Intention” as my word of the year. One of my “intentions” was to do the challenge. I didn’t work on genealogy every day, but some days I put in many more than 30 minutes, so the challenge was a great win for me. And Carol, I can totally identify with your comments about Reunion, as I also spent hours rebuilding and cleaning out my database. Not particularly fun, but the work will be worth it going forward, for sure.
Jeanne, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here, but my word of the year is also Intention!! It’s a great word. I’m so glad you intentionally participated in the challenge and that it was helpful!
I’m sorry to hear about your brother and hope he makes a speedy recovery. This challenge was a great way to kick off the year with genealogy research. I was able (using the DAR Build-an-app program) to complete supplemental applications for 2 of my Rev. War patriots and collect the necessary documentation. I also made progress on filing some paper stacks and digitizing several of these paper files. A little at a time!
Wow! Congrats, Zenda!!
Janine, I hope your brother recovers soon. It is never easy when a loved one is sick.
This is the first time that I was really able to complete the 30 by 30 challenge. It was a good jump start to the year for me. it made me realize that I have a lot more loose ends than I thought. I’m going to take some time this weekend to see how I can go about continuing on and improving upon this month’s productive searches and writing.
Mary, so glad that the 30 x 30 challenge was helpful! I love that it was a good start to the year for you!
Thanks to all of you for your kind comments about my brother. I’m cautiously optimistic and am glad to be able to with him.
Janine,
Thank you for throwing down the gauntlet with the 30/30 challenge. I ended up spending a total of much more than 30 minutes/day during January. Not always working on new research, but also on improving my general level of organization. I finally decided to give Evernote another try in my genealogy workflow and it’s very encouraging so far. I feel much more focused now and ready-to-move forward in more productive way than my previous hit-and-miss approach. The key was the way the 30 minutes a day broke it down into manageable pieces. Thank you so much for providing the inspiration!
Donna, your comment makes me so happy! I’m really glad that breaking it down into 30 minutes bites made you more productive!