January Ancestor: Alfred Jorgensen

My January ancestor is my grandfather Alfred Jorgensen. I never met this grandfather of mine.

He was born Lars Alfred Jorgensen on 10 May 1899 in Minden, Kearney county, Nebraska to Jorgen Christian "Chris" and Inger Katrina "Katie" (Nelson) Jorgensen. They stayed there in Kearney county for a few years. By 1910 they moved to Cheyenne County, Nebraska farming near Sidney.
He was the oldest child, having 2 younger sisters. One of his sisters, Martha Jorgensen died in 1920 at about 18 years of age. His other sister was my great aunt, Anna, and she lived the longest of the three to the age of 90 years old. So Anna was the only one of the three that I met in person.

Alfred grew up helping on the family farm. He married Mable L. Foster on 6 March 1935 in Sidney, Cheyenne County, Nebraska.

This photo of their marriage license, wedding rings and wedding photo hangs in my house.

Alfred and Mable were the parents of 3 boys: my father (who is deceased) and my two uncles (who are still living). Alfred was a farmer, farming for years until his death. He passed away in Denver, Colorado on March 10, 1951 at the age of 51. I realize I don't know much else about this grandfather. I should ask my uncles or look for an obituary.

For documentation about this grandfather, I have a marriage license, federal census for 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930 and 1940, and a cemetery photo. My mother has a death certificate which eventually I will get after a while. I should take a trip to Sidney (which isn't that far for me, across the state) for genealogy and visit several graves in person and look up an obituary and land records. I also have a few photos of him, the wedding one, one as a child with his family, a baby photo, and the one that I remember Grandma always having standing on her dresser.

Year in Review 2015

Happy New Year! Well it's a good time to take a look at what I have done, and make plans for what more I need to do in genealogy. I ALWAYS bite off more than I can chew, meaning I always plan for more than I can get done. But I also make progress, which is the main thing.
I have found putting my goals in 3 categories is helpful: professional goals, personal goals and volunteer goals. It seems as though my personal goals are always the least done and the last done. Putting others before myself, but I did spend many years, at least 5, tracing my own genealogy most of the time, so perhaps it's just time to give back.

PROFESSIONAL:
1. Attend at least 20 sessions of #genchat this year.
            I think I attended about 17 so I did well.
2. Do 2 webinars or videos for genealogy education
           I did one, so half.
3. Go to 2 genealogy conferences this year.
            I did go to two, one 2-day state conference and a 1-day.
4. Blog twice a month or 24 times in a year.
            Well I think I can count a blog that was about me on geneabloggers where I had to answer questions. I mean I mostly wrote it. So adding that one gets me to 18 posts for a year. Close again. I would've made it to 20 after completing my December ancestor and this post (which should be a December one).
5. Continue family research and scanning for clients.
            I made progress on both of these, but I for sure have more scanning to do and may have more research on that project.

VOLUNTEER:
1. Update the cemetery directory
            I did this in May, and further added a correction in August.
2. Continue adding photos in Findagrave and taking photos in county cemeteries.
            Progress made, added photos for about 4 blocks of gravestones. Nearly done photographing another.
3. Continue scanning marriage index, and transcribing it and put online.
             Scanned several more letters, and nearly have surname B finished transcribing.
4. Continue regular updates of GenWeb site.
             I think I updated it once, so failed on this one.

PERSONAL:
1. Do timelines for 12 ancestors (the ones I write about monthly)
            I think I did 2 so I need to do better here too.
2. Continue regular/quarterly backups
             I did a couple backups to my external hard drive and a little to Dropbox. I am thinking of looking for another source for backups, that would go automatically.
3. Finish husband's Mayflower application and do DAR application for me.
            Not sure I made any progress here, none that I can recall or marked down.
4. Continue working on my Ancestry To Do list.
            Progress made. I need to improve this goal as it is general and not real easy to measure.

I think that's about it. So next to think about 2016, what comes next.