What'cha Gonna Do?

-


2025 Calendar Courtesy OpenClipart

Whatcha Gonna Do This Year? 

Some make New Year's resolutions; I usually try to set some goals, and look back and measure progress made during the year. Our former president and director of our Education team Barbara Mattoon has set an even higher bar, publicly announcing her goals in our SKCGS blog 2020--What's in Your New Year? and 2024 Genealogy Resolutions. Lofty goals, and worthy of her dedication, skill and determination. 

Inspiring.

Back in 2021, I wrote "As I begin this new year, I was determined to not make any resolutions, yet I can't stop myself. "The book Mastering Genealogical Proof by Thomas W. Jones was a Christmas gift, and I immediately dived into reading it. I even started blogging about it on my personal blog, https://genweblog.blogspot.com/2020/12/end-of-2020-time-for-something-new.html. That's great, but unless I put the principles to work in my own research, what good does the reading and learning do? 

"So I resolve to use all the elements of the GPS [Genealogical Proof Standard] as I work in my tree, not just the fun ones like researching and analyzing. And especially I resolve to diligently "write a 'statement, list or narrative supporting the answer' to my research questions (quote from page 3 of Mastering Genealogical Proof).

"I think if I can really stick to this in 2021, I'll be much better prepared to start writing some books about my family which will at least be read by my family."

I did some of that since 2021, some of it here in the blog, but certainly not for everyone I researched! For the rest of the story, read on.

My big goal for the past three years has been working on a book, "The McBee and Allied Families of Grainger County, Tennessee." That work will continue as long as it takes to "finish" the research, writing, and publishing, which could be some years from now. 

Fresh Ideas

Meanwhile, in our final Genetic Genealogy/DNA meeting of the year, Lorraine said she intended to step up and write about 52 ancestors in answer to Amy Johnson Crow's challenge. Ever since I heard Elizabeth Shown Mills' challenge listeners to write a complete research report for each person we work on, in Information Overload? Effective Project Planning, Research, Data Management & Analysis, all of a sudden my brain put these challenges together, and a plan emerged. I decided to begin one research report each Sunday, whether or not I'm able to finish the research during the week. At least I'll have a list of properly cited sources, a timeline, perhaps a write-up and suggestions for further research. 

Then I watched Yvette Hoitink's webinar Dear Me: Writing Research Reports to Yourself. I adapted her suggested outline and created a template to use each Sunday of the year, expanded and modified. 

Ahnentafel

So: January 5, the first Sunday of 2025 I will start the first report; my father, Ted Cowan, ahnentafel #2. Then my mom, working my way up my tree in ahnentafel order. Since I'm #1, #53 will be the final report, the last Sunday of 2025. For those who have not encountered the word "ahnentafel" which is German*, here is an image of one from 1766: 

Ahnentafel 1766 of Agnesa Eleonora Louisa von Thun, courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons


All of these reports (or summaries) will be in a new personal blog called Fifty-Two Ancestors  and include a commenting link to most of the reports. Folks who wish to help out with undiscovered sources, photos, maps, etc. are welcome. Collaboration is the best!

The idea is to change research up each week, and stay in touch with the rest of the family tree besides the McBees and their FANs (Friends, Neighbors, Associates). Cross-pollination with new ideas, new sites, methods and datasets will be useful. The rest of 2025 I'll be concentrating on my McBees and their partners, FANs and anyone else up that line that seem to need more scrutiny.

What's Your Plan?    

Please write us about your plans, whether a fresh research goal,  education you that excites you, a trip, a conference–whatever it might be. Or, tell us how your plans worked before.


---
* Wikipedia says, "An ahnentafel (German for "ancestor table"...is a genealogical numbering system for listing a person's direct ancestors in a fixed sequence of ascent. The subject...of the ahnentafel is listed as No. 1, the subject's father as No. 2 and the mother as No. 3..."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org





Valorie Zimmerman




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Looking for a Needle in a Haystack? GAME CHANGER at FamilySearch

-
Image
Generated with Bing ImageCreator (AI), March 13, 2024 Where is YOUR Needle, Your Missing Record? Genealogical Proof Standard When we use the GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard) as our guide, we all know that "exhaustive research" can be both tedious and exhausting. Is life long enough to search page by page through all the counties where all the members of a family might have lived, paid taxes, bought, leased or sold property, made a will or died intestate? It is possible that the new Full Text Search at FamilySearch will  eventually  allow us to do just that. It has been estimated that 75% or more of the records at FamilySearch were browsable but not searchable; the only indexes those found in the records themselves. Those records are certainly attainable by using those indexes and browsing to the record of interest, but the process is tedious, often frustrating, and slow. And once found, the record must be read and transcribed to be useful. This new Full Text Search tackles a...
Read more

Help Save This Abused and Neglected Cemetery

-
Image
Screen capture from Google Maps History In an exchange of emails this past week in both the main SKCGS group, and in the Washington-State-Genealogy group, many facts were revealed about the history of the I.O.O.F. Comet Lodge Cemetery, also known as the Old Burying Ground, the Georgetown Cemetery, the Graham Street Burying Ground and maybe more.  FindAGrave sums it up this way: "Since it was established in 1881, the Comet Lodge cemetery site has been whittled away to less than half its original 5 acres. Records are sketchy but it's safe to say that some 500 pioneers were buried here, atop unknown numbers of native Duwamish people. New burials ended in the 1930s. Since then, homes and streets were built on top of many of the plots as the neighborhood around the cemetery grew.  "Upkeep and ownership of the cemetery bounced between the city, civic groups, relatives of Comet Lodge residents, and nearby neighbors. For years, much of the property was allowed to deteriorate int...
Read more

What's the Question?

-
Image
We genealogists are often told by experienced researchers how important it is to begin with a research question. I resisted doing this for a long time, but now that I use a series of questions to guide my research, the search is more focused and actually finds more of the history of the family I'm investigating. I use a Google Doc as the  research proceeds, where I keep the question(s), the plan, timelines, checklist of resources to search, etc. all in one place. I've seen others use spreadsheets in the same way, perhaps splitting up things in tabs (Excel or Google Sheets). I prefer a document because I add source citations as I find them and I can begin writing up the case right there in the doc as the hypotheses are proven. Specific Questions in Previous Successes As beginners we often have no clue how much and what details we already know about a person, event or relationship, so it's hard to specify what we want to know. But when looking back at successful research, it ...
Read more