It’s the middle of the month. How’s your 30 x 30 challenge going? Please let us know in the comments!

I have to admit, I’m not having a great month for genealogy research. It’s disappointing, because I really do want to take in a bunch of RootsTech classes and I also want to prep for the 1950 census release in just a couple of weeks. But sometimes life gets in the way of enjoyable activities.

My 92-year-old aunt is having some health difficulties and I’m her Power of Attorney so I’ve been kept very busy arranging for and monitoring her care from afar. I’m glad to do it but after taking care of my aunt and my business I don’t have a lot of extra time.

I’m so glad I didn’t procrastinate too much on my census prep. I’ve been able to identify some enumeration districts for some of my people, in case the name indexes don’t give me what I need. I’ve managed to research or watch RootsTech classes only 10 of the last 15 days. Disappointing, but unavoidable. I’m just going to do what I can and not beat myself up.

I hope some of you have had a better go of it and that if you haven’t your being kind to yourself about it! I hope to take in at least a few classes before the end of the month.

Another 30 x 30 challenge is behind us. Did it help you get more genealogy research or genealogy organizing done? Please share in the comments!

I had a good month. I missed two days but did research the other 28 days. On four of those days, my research consisted of attending Amy Johnson Crow’s All About Ancestry webinars, which were 90 minutes to two hours long, so that helped with my daily average. Over the course of the month, I averaged 44 minutes a day for a total of 22 hours of research. That feels great!

One of my goals was to eliminate my backlog of downloaded documents I needed to process. On January 1, I had 77 documents in the backlog. During the month, I downloaded 23 new documents and processed a total of 90 documents, leaving me with a backlog of 10 documents still to process. Hooray! I had a lot of fun and learned a lot about my ancestors.

If you participated in the challenge, please leave a comment. Did the challenge help you get more done than you otherwise would have? Are you pleased with your progress?

I’ll probably do another challenge in March, so keep an eye out!

It’s (past) the middle of the month and it’s time for those of us doing the 30 x 30 challenge to check in and report on how it’s going! I haven’t missed a day, but I have had some days where I was not able to do a full 30 minutes of research. But my average is above 30 minutes a day (so far this month) because I was able to put in a couple of long sessions.

Last night I remembered at bedtime that I hadn’t researched, so I snuck in 15 minutes and processed a newspaper article from my backlog of unprocessed documents. My backlog, which numbered 88 on December 25, now stands at 28. I’m getting there!

One of the reasons I’ve been successful with this challenge is that on January 13 I tested positive for COVID. I’m vaccinated and boosted and I caught Omicron. My symptoms were mild (I felt crappy only one day) but I was required to isolate in the house for five days. It meant I had to cancel client appointments and a trip to Walla Walla so I’ve had lots of time at my computer. It’s been refreshing to be able to focus on my research! (That was definitely a silver lining about my catching COVID.)

How about you? If you’re one of the three dozen or so people who signed up for the challenge, how’s it going? Please let us know in the comments.