Happy new year! I don’t know about you, but I love starting new habits at the beginning of the month. The beginning of the year is even better! So now seems like a great time to start a new 30 x 30 challenge.
The original intent of the challenge is to challenge yourself to doing 30 minutes of genealogy research for 30 days in a row. I’ve done probably a half dozen of these challenges over the last 2.5 years and the August 2017 one finally stuck. I’ve done research every single day since August 1.
The challenge doesn’t have to be for 30 minutes of research. Perhaps it’s 30 minutes of genealogy organizing or scanning or whittling away at a backlog. Whatever type of genealogy-related work you’d like to do for 30 minutes a day is perfect for this challenge.
For me, I have a lot going on, so I’m sticking with the original 30 minutes of research. I want to set myself up for success.
Please comment below if you’d like to take on the challenge and let us know what you’ll be working on.
Hi Janine and happy new year! I am in 🙂 I am not really in the mood for my research lately so I focused on some housecleaning. Cleaning up file names, checking for sources, deleting duplicates – stuff like that.
I feel that I would rather research offline, visiting archives and libraries, but I don’t have the time for that. Well.. online it is then, doing the stuff that needs to be done.
Cheers
Barbara
Barbara, I think focusing on those housekeeping tasks can be really beneficial. And, for me anyway, kind of soothing.
When I re-read Joshua Taylor’s How They Do It interview recently, I was really struck by the fact that he took a year off from his research to get organized. Wow!
Glad you’re in on the 30 x 30 challenge, Barbara!
I will give it a try and will probably do a mix of research and cleaning up files, etc.
Great, Nancy! Let us know how you do!
I will work on Ancestral Quest population of the tree starting from me. I haven’t learned to use the software yet and I bought it because of the good reviews on the built in research log capability! As part of this, I want to download jpgs of all those censuses and whatnot on Ancestry so I can take a financial break this year for a while. Housekeeping, reboot.
Excellent! I’ll be interested to hear how you like Ancestral Quest. I think you’re very smart to download the jpgs of the documents. I always do. (I download them from Family Search too.) If you haven’t read it, you might find my post on how I process downloaded documents to be helpful. https://organizeyourfamilyhistory.com/process-downloaded-document/
I accepted your challenge, but with a little twist. I will be researching one particular ancestor for 30 minutes for 30 days. I too am a genealogy blogger. If you have a free moment check out my blog post about accepting your challenge. Thanks for all you do.
https://journeythroughgenerationsblog.wordpress.com/2018/01/03/new-year-new-genealogy-challenge/
Trisha, I love the idea of focusing on a particular ancestor for 30 minutes a day for 30 days. I can’t wait to hear what you accomplish! I’m off to check out your blog now. Thank for posting the link.
It’s a rare day that I’m not doing something genealogical for at least 30 minutes: a happy bonus of retirement. Lately I’m rechecking my “brick walls” for any sources available since my original research on them, and also the East Prussian records that Ancestry has recently added.
Retirement sounds very nice! Thanks so much for commenting, Kendall. I love your strategy of revisiting your brick walls.