Thursday, December 22, 2011

My 2012 New Year's Resolutions

Happy Solstice!!!

Well, it's that time of year! Time to wrap up the old year and prepare for the new! Therefore, I've decided to create some genealogy-specific New Year's resolutions, which is something I've never done before. I feel like I have a lot of areas I could improve on, so I've got a lot of resolutions. These aren't specific goals, but rather are broad concepts of directions I want to take with my research.

The first resolution I thought of was inspired by a new-ish blog, The Paperless Genealogist. I plan to go paperless in 2012. I don't think this will really be that difficult, since my genealogy is already pretty much all online. But I do still have a couple folders of papers, and the worst are the post-its. I constantly jot things down on post-it notes, or write lists of names down. Sometimes I find these notes to myself months later when I don't remember what they mean anymore. So this has got to stop!

My second resolution was also inspired by another blogger: The Demanding Genealogist. In the last few months I've started citing sources (I know, I know, I always should have been doing that!). So my resolution is basically to keep doing what I've been doing: gradually go through all the information I have in my tree, adding sources to support each fact. Hopefully eventually I'll catch up and have my whole tree properly sourced!

Third, I want to collect stories. I've already got the basic family tree information from my grandparents, but I want to spend more time listening to their stories. I bet I'll get a lot more details filled in that way. This could also go along with looking at pictures with them and having them help me identify people. Somewhat related to this, I want to get in touch with more of my relatives like my grandma's siblings and my mom's cousins.

Lastly, I want to do more learning! I have my cozy little bubble of records I know how to use, and I know I'm missing out on a tonne of other information because of that. I'm comfortable with census records (me and the Canadian censuses are total besties!), Manitoba vital records (NOT Ontario vital records), and the Acadian/Quebec records that are compiled in the Drouin Collection (my French class helped a whole lot on that one). But land records, say what? Probate records? Huh? I have much to learn, is what I'm saying!

What are your goals for being a better genealogist in 2012? Share them in the comments or link to your own New Year's Resolutions blog post!

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