Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Search Results for: 30 x 30 challenge

Time for a 30 x 30 check in!

By 13 Comments

It’s the middle of August already! How’s your 30 x 30 challenge going? If you’re participating in the challenge, please  comment below and let us know how it’s going!

I’ll start. I have done at least 30 minutes of research all but three days. I had some oral surgery this week and just wasn’t up for it afterward. And the next day I had to lead an organizing team for eight hours and had no energy afterward for anything. And I just plain forgot one day. The good news is that I researched more than 30 minutes enough days to make up for that deficit. So once I get back on track today, I should have no trouble reaching my goal of an average of 30 minutes a day for 30 days.

How about you? Has the challenge been helpful? Have you had your ups and downs like me? Remember, any effort is good!

How’d the June 30 x 30 go?

By 14 Comments

June is behind us, as is another 30 x 30 challenge. How did things go for you? Did you manage to meet your goal of 30 minutes of genealogy research/organizing for 30 days (or whatever your alternate goal was)? If not, did you do more than might have done without the challenge? Please report in!

My month didn’t go exactly as planned, due to competing responsibilities. But I definitely put in more than 15 hours, thanks to my genealogy research trip. I had hoped to expend daily effort on planning the trip, but it didn’t work out that way. Instead, the planning went in spurts of larger amounts of time. And then, of course, I had the trip itself, which I took the last week in June. That week alone, I spent more than 30 hours doing genealogy research. So I’m calling this challenge a success, even if my approach wasn’t exactly 30 x 30esque.

I’ll write about my trip in Friday’s post. In the meantime, those of you who took on the challenge please use the comments to let us know how it went!

Mid-month 30 x 30 update

By 10 Comments

It’s June 18 already! Where did the month go? Back on June 1, I started a new 30 x 30 challenge, where I commited to doing 30 minutes of genealogy research (or research-related activities) for 30 days. I great group of you decided to join the challenge.

So it’s time for a mid-month report. How’s it going? Please let us know in the comments.

I have to be honest and say it’s not going how I expected. My priority has been planning my research trip to Kentucky and I’m confident I’ve put in 9 hours (18 days x 30 minutes) this month, but it hasn’t been 30 minutes at a time. I’ve had longer sessions and have not been able to put in daily effort. (It’s been a busy time for my organizing business, so I just haven’t had that much freedom in my schedule this month.)

Planning this trip has been a journey. (No pun intended.) I leave on the 24th and I’m finished with the planning. (I did score what looks like a great AirBnB in Frankfort, just a two-minute walk from the Kentucky Historical Society!) I can’t wait to see how the trip works out and you can bet I’ll be talking about it here. I intend to write an Orderly Roots guide about planning a trip as well. And I proposed to speak on planning a research trip at RootsTech in February. (Time will tell whether that’s accepted.)

So I haven’t met my intended goal with this month’s 30 x 30 but I’m feeling okay about the time spent. How’s the challenge going for you?

April 30 x 30 wrap up

By 11 Comments

April felt like a really long month! I’m happy to say that I was able to do at least some genealogy research every day. But I don’t think I managed to do 900 minutes’ worth over the whole month. I’m really proud of my daily research, because I didn’t let travel get in the way. I was out of town nine of the 30 days.

Even though I didn’t manage 30 minutes every day, I think that doing at least a little bit of research each day was really beneficial. It kept me connected to my research and my ancestors and made getting started at any given session much easier. I’m looking forward to attending the NGS conference next week and it’ll be nice to be so connected with my research as I learn.

It’s May 3 and I didn’t research on the 1st and 2nd (I think I needed a break), but I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of frequent (if not daily) research.

How about you? If you participated in the challenge, how’d it go? Did you find it beneficial?