Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

October 30 x 30 challenge: Please report in!

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The October 2018 30 x 30 challenge has come to an end and it’s time for those of us who were participating to fess up. How did it go for you?

For me, this challenge was not the best. Usually my 30 x 30 challenges are hugely motivating for me. More often than not, because of the challenge I’m able to stay on track and research for at least 30 minutes a day for 30 days in a row. This October, however, I was just not able to prioritize genealogy research. My schedule was such that I couldn’t fit in the research first thing in the morning and, as I’ve discovered, if I don’t first thing it usually doesn’t get done. The last week of the month, I didn’t do any research.

But I’m cutting myself a lot of slack. The genealogy research is waiting for me and I’m hopeful that I will be able to prioritize once again very soon. I have some challenges, including an upcoming five-day trip and a visit from my brother and niece (who live in Australia) followed by a trip with them to Washington state see our father. Sometimes during these family times regular work falls off the radar and genealogy becomes a priority. So I’m hopeful that I’ll get some great genealogy research in the rest of the year. But I don’t think I’ll start another challenge until January.

How about you? Did you fare better than me? Did the challenge help you get some research in? Would you be up for a January 2019 30 x 30 challenge?

NARA 2018 Virtual Genealogy Fair is tomorrow!

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I almost missed telling you about the 2018 Virtual Genealogy Fair offered (free of charge) by the National Archives. It’s tomorrow, October 24. This is the sixth year for the conference, offered by webcast. It’s a wonderful resource.

You can read the lineup, with detailed descriptions of the sessions and links to handouts, here. Detailed descriptions of the sessions are posted here, which is also where handouts will be posted when they’re available. (Classes are marked either Beginner” or “Experienced.”) There will be six one-hour sessions, bookended by opening and closing remarks. The even starts at 10 am eastern and ends at 4.

I’m busy with a client tomorrow, so I was thrilled to read that I don’t have to watch live. The webcast will be available on YouTube to watch later. You don’t have to register.

Special thanks to my cousin, Jerry Brown, who alerted me to this year’s conference. It had flown beneath my radar this year.

October 30 x 30 update

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We had a good turnout of folks who said they wanted to participate in this month’s 30 x 30 challenge, in which we committed to doing 30 minutes of some genealogy-related activity for 30 days in a row. How’s it going? Please report in!

For me, this month’s challenge has been harder than usual. I’ve had a busy month with early appointments with organizing clients and I gave a talk at the St. Louis Genealogy Conference, last Saturday, which was a bit time consuming to prepare. So I haven’t researched each and every day–according to my research log, I missed three days completely. I know that on some of the days I did research, I wasn’t able to put in a full 30 minutes. I’m confident it will average to 30 minutes a day (helped by the fact that I attended a six-hour genealogy conference). And I’m okay with that.

Because of the 30 x 30 challenge, I definitely did research that I wouldn’t have otherwise done. This is why I love these challenges!

Even though I fell off the wagon a little bit, I fully intend to keep going and try not to miss any days the rest of the month. That’s progress, because I have a tendency to abandon daily challenges (especially those that involve exercise) if I break the chain.

I’d love to hear how it’s going for you! Have you been able to keep up with daily research? If you missed a day, did you hop right back on the challenge?

Don’t let perfectionism paralyze you

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As I mentioned earlier this summer, I’ve started a podcast with Shannon Wilkinson called Getting to Good Enough. Every week we release a new episode about overcoming perfectionism so you can do more of what you love.

Perfectionism can certainly come into play with genealogy research, which Shannon and I explored that in this week’s episode. Shannon is a newer genealogy researcher (she went with me to RootsTech this year) and she has some perfectionist tendencies. She was very fortunate to uncover a literal treasure trove of family documents when she was cleaning out her mother’s home after her mother moved to a care home. She quickly became overwhelmed by the responsibility of the stewardship of these documents and was striving to handle them perfectly. She was paralyzed and couldn’t get started on working with them.

In Episode 20 of the podcast, which is one of our “Good Enough in Practice” episodes where we explore how we’re embracing good enough in our own lives, Shannon and I discuss how perfectionism can interfere with progress in genealogy research. We brainstormed how she could get started with her documents and she put together a plan. Shortly after our discussion she was able to get started processing them. I encourage you to give it a listen. I think it’s an interesting discussion.

You can listen right on our website or on iTunes or Google Play or Stitcher.

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When you first join the list, I’ll send you a few emails to help you organize your family history. After that you’ll hear from me at the end of every month when I send an email with links to that month’s posts. And every now and then, I’ll let you know when I have something special to promote.