Organize Your Family History

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Mid-month 30 x 30 update

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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?

Impromptu 30 x 30 challenge!

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Today’s June 1 and I decided I really need a 30 x 30 challenge. I’m planning to take a research trip the last week in June and as I started thinking about how I really wanted to do some great pre-planning for it, I realized I would  benefit from a 30 x 30 challenge.

Will you join me in committing to 30 minutes of genealogy research a day for 30 days (or whatever incarnation of the challenge works for you)? With a challenge, I am more likely to do daily work on planning my trip and the whole month (including the research trip) will have less stress and more ease.

I’m so glad these challenges are helpful to many of those who participate, but with this post I’m making it clear that I do it for myself! I find the accountability extremely helpful. With this particular challenge I’ll be focusing on those families I plan to research in Kentucky and on planning the logistics of the trip.

Please let me know in the comments if you’re in!

April 30 x 30 wrap up

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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?

 

April 30 x 30 challenge: check in!

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We’re a little over halfway through the month and therefore more than halfway through the April 30 x 30 challenge. If you’re one of the folks who is participating, how have you been doing with the challenge of 30 minutes of genealogy research for 30 days in a row (or whatever version you’ve created)?

I have to admit, this has been a tough one for me. I knew going in that it was going to be a challenge to do daily research. In the first two weeks of the month, I was out of town nine days. And when I was home, I was busy with organizing clients. So, as I said in the post introducing the challenge, I adjusted my goal to be daily research, no matter how small, with an average of 30 minutes a day stretched out over the month.

I’m happy to say I’ve managed to research each and every day, but I’ve been flexible on what I have to do to meet that standard. Some days I’ve research more than a half hour. Others, only ten minutes. Yesterday, all I did was read an article in the new NGS Quarterly. But the fact is that each day I’ve had something to enter in my research log and that’s made me feel good.

Last weekend, I was able to get a few hours of research in on a rainy day, so I think I’ll achieve my goal of 900 minutes over the course of the month (though I haven’t been keeping close track).

How about you? Have you missed a day? And if you did, did you get right back into it? Please share your progress!