Genealogy Goals for 2012

Happy New Year! A new year means a good time to turn over a new leaf, set goals, organize, get finances in order, exercise or lose weight.

Yesterday I summed up how I did in 2011 with my genealogy goals. Today I hope to set some goals for 2012. I've always heard goals should be attainable and measurable. Some people like to set short-term goals and long-term goals, and some people like a few goals or a lot of goals. I guess the main thing is find what works for you; I'm still trying to figure out what works for me.

Personal genealogy: 1) Finish my husband's Mayflower application and get it mailed in. 2) If I get time, start our SAR and DAR applications. 3) Continue working on my brick wall lines and lines where I have received more info, specifically my Irish DACY and CRAHAN family has been a huge brick wall. My SICKMON and HANKS families I have received more info this year. I recently found my g-g-grandfather Charles W. HANKS immigrated with his mother with the last name of EICHBERG (his mother's second married name).

Volunteer genealogy: 1) Finish photographing the Osceola Cemetery and putting it on Findagrave and update the city's database. 2) Get a directory and signs up at the Stromsburg Cemetery. (This is my local cemetery where I am on the cemetery board; this is dependent on funds and time.) 3) Update my Kearney County Nebraska GenWeb site quarterly, and continue to work on the cemetery listing I have.

Writing, Research and Re-organization: 1) Write 2 blog posts a month (or 24 for the year). 2) Take one day and go somewhere not too far (i.e. Tilden or Fairbury) to find more records on one of my family lines (this is dependent on a Daddy Day Care day or Grandma Day Care day). 3) Keep my genealogy papers and computer files organized and back-up my files preferably monthly but no less than quarterly.

Education and Socialization: 1) Go to at least one genealogy conference (hopefully the annual Nebraska conference in May). 2) Take at least one webinar. 3) Continue to read other genealogy blogs and follow #genealogy on Facebook and Twitter. 4) Continue to meet almost monthly with my local genealogy peeps. 5) Look into some education toward becoming a "professional genealogist".

That's 14 goals, probably too many, but I don't want to be bored. All of this and still take care of my family (of currently 3, soon to be 4) and household chores. Stay tuned to see how I do. There is hope for several of these, but I doubt I get all 14 done.