2024 Genealogy Resolutions

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Continuing Your Education: New Years Resolution Ideas for Students
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My 2024 Genealogy Resolutions

For many people, year-end is a time of reflection on the past year and looking ahead to how we hope the next year will unfold.

As I have worked on my genealogy development activities for my Kinship Determination Project during the past few days, I have thought about how I can be more effective going forward. Making genealogy resolutions for 2024 is a result of that thought.


First: I will write a Research Plan for each project or new phase of a project. No longer will I just dive into acquiring names, dates, or facts in a haphazard fashion, hoping to emerge with a finished Research Report. (More on that later.)


Second: I will create a complete citation for every date, fact, or other piece of information that is not general knowledge when I find it. I will not allow myself to think, “Oh, I’ll remember where I saw that.”

Third: I will consult the original record whenever I can possibly find it. An abstract or transcription are only helpful clues as to what an original record might contain.

Fourth: I will analyze each piece of information as I find it. Is it original or derivative evidence? How reliable is the source of the information? Much as I love The Mattoon Family Genealogy, it is totally unsourced, and I must verify the information it contains with other sources.

Fifth: I will correlate each new piece of information with the information I have previously collected. Does it fit? Does it make sense? Does it point to another source I might not have considered? No longer will I risk having my conclusion fall apart when writing my proof argument or proof summary because I neglected to correlate each piece of information as I found it.

Sixth: I will write a Research Report for myself, the client, as I complete each Research Plan. No longer will I allow piles of notebooks containing notes, citations, and random thoughts to accumulate on my desk, and call it research. It is just random piles of paper.

These six resolutions are not my plan for 2024. They are the basic principles which will form the foundation for all the genealogy tasks I plan to complete in the upcoming year. If I follow them faithfully, I believe my review of 2024 next December will be more satisfying than it has been in the past.

Best Wishes for Your Success!

Barbara Mattoon                          A person smiling for the camera Description automatically generated with low confidence     


Thank you, Barbara, for your thoughtful and thought provoking 2024 contribution to the SKCGS Blog.  Readers, would you please resolve to contribute to the blog this year?  Send us your successes, dilemmas and random genealogical observations!    

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 1, 2024 at 4:55 PM

    I can relate to a lot of what you wrote about. I need to be more diligent and accountable.

    ReplyDelete

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