For those of you who participated in this month’s 30 x 30 challenge, in which you committed to doing 30 minutes of genealogy-related activity for 30 days in a row, how’d it go?
I actually missed a day, for the first time since August 1. I typically research first thing in the morning but on Saturday I had to be up and out of the house to get to the Apple store when it opened (my phone had died) and then the rest of the day went by in a blur and I forgot to research. So that speaks to the power of daily routine. I’m definitely best off if I can research in the morning and I try to plan the time I wake up around it. (That Saturday I couldn’t get myself to get up earlier, because I’d had a late night the night before.)
So that’s my true confession. How did the rest of you do? Even if you weren’t able to do 30 days in a row, was the effort at least beneficial? I’d love to hear!
I did a lot of brainstorming about my various potential projects, and have started working on Individual Work Sheets. I have gathered tools to help me start logging better. I bought Evidentia to help me with source citations for claims. I have SO much I need to just pin down.
I had a MAJOR excitement a week in when I fell over a rock (known as Quebec Parish records highlighted on Ancestry on login) and hit my head on a Brick Wall and it came tumbling down! This let to finding a 4th cousin and confirming our DNA match… and then the ensuing excitement caused me to abandon being organized and go mad learning all I could about my new GGG Grandparents. LOL. But then it made me realize more than ever that I need to prove all this cool stuff. SO, the past week has been me battling myself to work on these documents and not go hunting for more ancestors. Yet.
The struggle is real. I keep trying to find new things.
I love your description of your breakthrough. Congratulations!! I totally understand being brought off track by that discovery.
I don’t think you have to choose between researching and organizing. You can do both. But if you have a new organizing system you’re wanting to implement, perhaps start using it for the new stuff, then working away at your backlog.
Most of all, have fun!
Averaged 1-2 hours/day, with the bulk of research primarily conducted on weekends.
Reunion for Mac has been such a tremendous help and has boosted my enthusiasm and endurance for wading through family history research. My family members have been much more responsive ever since I began using Reunion to generate charts & person sheets.
The visual cues on these reports, which indicate missing information, has quite astoundingly revived my family’s eagerness to “fill in the blanks.”
I cannot thank you enough, Janine, for making such a wonderful recommendation!
An average of 1-2 hours per day is impressive! I’m so glad that Reunion has been so helpful for you, Corbin! I haven’t used any other genealogy program, so I don’t know how it compares but I do know that I really like it. Keep up with the great work!