Goals for the rest of the year

20 October 2014, Chriss Coleman

I’ve been thinking a lot of my genealogy research as a whole and I’m currently in need of sitting down and just getting a few things sorted. That means I need goals. I love goals.

How not to file your papers

There is some housework needed in my genealogy database. I need to go back and transcribe a bunch of records from my early days and get them up to speed with the rest of my database. I would also like improve my source citations, which will make things easier when it comes to sharing, including on this blog. I also have lots of scans that were recently done that need sorting, cropping, transcribing, filing, and all the other wonderful things that are required after you’ve torn a relative’s house upside-down looking for genealogical information.

In short, I need to tidy things up so that my database is actually useful, streamlined, coherent, and ultimately usable by someone other than myself. You know, so it can be passed on.

My main goal for the rest of the year is to clean up my database as follows:

  1. Rewrite my source citations. I’m starting at the beginning with source 1, and working my way through.
  2. Transcribe my early sources and documents. I’ve found this infinitely useful. I’m also hoping by looking at some of these earlier items with more experienced eyes will lead me to be able to follow clues I hadn’t noticed before.
  3. Start working my way through the digital pile of scans waiting to be catalogued.

Goal three is going to be ongoing, but I’d really like to complete the first two goals by the end of 2014. I’m not enjoying the nagging feeling of things not being in order. I have big plans for how I want to do my research in 2015, and I’d really love to start with a fresh slate so I continue to more forward unburdened. Working these three goals will also feed the blog, and hopefully the desire to blog will feed the need to get it sorted.

Photo: ©Chriss Coleman, taken in the old outhouse at Den Gamle By (“The Old Town”) open air museum, Århus, Denmark. A reminder of how I don’t want my genealogical info to meet its end.