Goals for 2013

Well, it's that time of year to set my genealogy goals for 2013. I did not really set any major goals last December. Instead, I started setting monthly goals for about the first three months of 2012 and I posted about my accomplishments each month. I think I may re-instate monthly goals for 2013. However, I think I will also set some high-level goals in this post.

The first big goal that i would like to accomplish would be to blog more. I did so well on my blog in the beginning of 2009 when I first started. I was posting at least twice a week. Now I barely post once a month. I just haven't been making it a priority. I would like to at least post Surname Saturday, Census Sunday, Wordless Wednesday, and Treasure Chest Thursday posts each week. Well, that seems like a lot for someone who has only been posting once a month. Maybe I will just try to accomplish Census Sunday and Wordless Wednesday for the first couple of months, with my overall goal to be posting all four series each week by next December. I also need to pick back up on my Arthur Chamberlin series of posts and my Pemberton Obituary Project posts that I started several moons ago. I think I need to set up a concrete plan in writing with the posts I am going to do each week. Maybe that will keep me on track.

The second big goal that I would like to accomplish would be to finish my RootsMagic database maintenance. I have been working on it since at least fall 2009. I believe that I am at least 75% of the way through. I have been cleaning up source citations and adding a few new source citations as I go along to keep it interesting. Database maintenance can get tedious. The new city directories database that Ancestry.com posted several months ago has given me lots of info about many of my distant aunts, uncles, and cousins. I've also been adding citations from the 1940 census and Find A Grave as I do my cleanup. In addition to source citations, I've also been cleaning up some of the events in my database. The source citations and events kind of got gargled when I transferred from Legacy to RootsMagic. Plus, I have a lot of events/facts that are only supported by online family histories with no sources cited. I've been trying to remove those facts/events and add them to the research notes for the person with a note about the online family history.

Once I finish the goal of cleaning up the database, I would like to run some reports to see where my source is an index entry rather than the actual record. I have a lot of sources for deaths in Michigan as the index at Ancestry.com. It's time to start ordering the actual record to verify if I have the correct person.

Finally, I would like to start researching my Mertena ancestors. These are the ancestors of my paternal grandmother on her father's side. I believe with all the new online databases and access to microfilm from the FHL, I can make some more breakthroughs with this line. I need to document the breakthroughs I have already made the past few months. I would like to try out the new Evidentia software to help me with this.

So, those are my goals, folks! Let's see how I do....

A Look Back At April Goals

Well, the month is half over, and I'm finally getting a chance to look back at April goals. April was a busy month because I decided to finally start looking for a full-time job now that I have passed the CPA exam. When I moved from North Carolina to Louisiana in October, I didn't look for full-time work because I still had one section of the exam to take in November, and I knew it was going to be my hardest section. I found some part-time contract work at the same company I had been working at in North Carolina, but it was time to move on. I really needed a job with benefits and full-time hours. And, yes, I did find a new job as an accounting manager with another government contractor (previous employer was also a government contractor) here in Louisiana. I started the new job this week, and so far, I really, really like it.

Anywho, all of that somewhat got in the way of my genealogy research, but here's how I did with my April goals.

Finish looking up the siblings of my great-great-grandparents in the SSDI.

No, I didn't get to this one yet. I think this has been a goal since February or so. Need to get on the ball.

Index at least one page of the 1940 census every night.

I made this goal! I believe I actually averaged about 2 pages per day.

Enter the 1940 source citations for my grandparents I found last night (post to follow).

I did manage to find all of my grandparents in the 1940 census and enter them into my RootsMagic database. 

Clean up source citations and events for my great-great-great-grandparents, John PEMBERTON and Mary Ann COOMBS and their children.

I am still working on this one, primarily because of the time I spent on the 1940 census indexing. I have gotten through with my great-great-great-grandparents plus 3 of the 5 children (and all of their descendants and collaterals).

Write at least one post on Arthur Chamberlin and family.

I did not manage to accomplish this goal. Will try better for May.

Well, I am not going to post any goals for May since the month is half over and I've been really busy getting used to working full-time again. I should definitely have goals back by July. I'm just going to continue working on my database maintenance project and will try to post more on this blog.

April Goals

Well, I'm finally getting around to discussing my progress with March goals and setting my April goals. Better late than never. With the release of the 1940 census and a trip to Vegas, I've been quite busy.

Below are my March goals with my progress updates in red:

• Finish the database cleanup of sources and events for the CHATTERSON and related families. 
• Phew! Finished this one just under the radar. Actually, I just finished it yesterday, but who's counting? It's finished! That cleaned up a lot of extra sources in my source list. When Legacy 6.0 was still using the old free-form source formatting, I was creating an individual source for each person in a given record set in order to get the citation just right.  I decided to start doing this right before Legacy 7.0 came out and improved the source citation features. I guess I just couldn't wait, but luckily I only did it with the sources for two family lines. That just happened to be when I was entering the Chatterson and Chamberlain research in my database.
• Visit the LSU Library to find a few obituaries and get back in the swing of Louisiana research in Baton Rouge. I haven't done any research here since I've been back.
• Didn't get to this one yet. March was pretty busy for me because I took a week long trip to Vegas to help my little brother move. I also took on an extra project at work one weekend. Maybe in April.
• Earn 300 more points in indexing.
• I actually earned 380 points. Yay!  I've discovered a new favorite indexing project (other than the 1940 census, of course!). It's the Steuben County, Indiana, marriages. It's a border county with no waiting period, so lots of Michiganders married in Steuben County, including my great-great-aunt and my great-aunt, and their marriage records contain LOTS of info.
• Finish my posts on Arthur CHAMBERLIN and family.
• I didn't finish the posts, but I did include two more posts. One was about the death of Arthur's son, and the other was about finding Arthur's parents in the 1910-1930 censuses.
• Reply to at least three or four more cousins who have emailed me within the past few weeks.
• I don't think I accomplished this one. I need to get better at this. I usually do respond, it just may take me a month or two (or six months). 
• Add at least three sources from my "to be entered" folder to my RootsMagic database.
• I don't think I accomplished this one either. Though I did find an obituary of a distant cousin's wife in the Toledo Blade at Google News and entered the citation into my database. Yay!

My April goals are as follows:

• Finish looking up the siblings of my great-great-grandparents in the SSDI.
• Index at least one page of the 1940 census every night.
• Enter the 1940 source citations for my grandparents I found last night (post to follow). 
• Clean up source citations and events for my great-great-great-grandparents, John PEMBERTON and Mary Ann COOMBS and their children.
• Write at least one post on Arthur Chamberlin and family.

Bye, February! Hello, March!

I must say that I did much better with my February goals than my January goals. My only regret for February is that I only wrote three blog posts. However, blogging wasn't one of my goals, so I guess that won't count against me....LOL. Here is a recap of my goals and my updates in red.

February Goals:

• Finish cleaning up the sources and events for the CHAMBERLAIN family and begin working on the CHATTERSON family. 
• I finished this one right on time. I started the cleanup around the beginning of February or end of January, and just moved on to the Chatterson family this week. 
• Look up my great-grandparents' and great-great-grandparents' siblings and their spouses and children in the SSDI, just in case access goes away at some point in the future. I really don't think that it will, but just in case...
• Well, I got to the siblings of my great-grandparents (and even some of the siblings' descendants), but I didn't get to the siblings of my great-great-grandparents. My struggle with this is that my database in RootsMagic only includes part of my research. The rest is in my old Family Tree Maker database, and much of that did not include research on the siblings of my ancestors. To compensate, I've been using those "evil" unsourced online trees to obtain death dates for them.
• Finish my posts on Arthur CHAMBERLIN and family.
• This was an epic fail. On second thought, I guess blogging was included in my goals. I don't know what happened to February. Time got away from me. I guess I focused too much on the database cleanup process and the indexing (see below). 
• Earn 300 points indexing at FamilySearch.
• Did much better in this area compared to January. I actually got around 600 points total for the quarter, so I made up my slack in January. My goal is 900 points per quarter. I mostly indexed Texas death records. I noticed they had already been indexed, but then I saw a note somewhere that FamilySearch was trying to correct some problems with the initial indexing, so I assume this is why they were being re-indexed. I also indexed a few British census records, but I find these to be difficult because I'm not familiar with the place names and some of the occupations. 
• Start my Organizing and Skillbuilding course through NIGS. 
• I started this course. I need to catch up. I'm about a week or two behind. I think I'm okay, though, because it is an 8-week course with only 6 modules instead of 7. The main difference, however, between this and the previous course I took is that this course has more assignments per module. 

On a side note, I did accomplish part of my January goals. I managed to enter my marriage record into my database. I also managed to scan a few PERSI articles for a cousin, which I will enter into my database later. At least they are now scanned. I also wrote back the same cousin and even had lunch with my other cousin who lives near me. Better late than never to catch up on January goals.

 
March Goals:

• Finish the database cleanup of sources and events for the CHATTERSON and related families. 
• Visit the LSU Library to find a few obituaries and get back in the swing of Louisiana research in Baton Rouge. I haven't done any research here since I've been back.
• Earn 300 more points in indexing.
• Finish my posts on Arthur CHAMBERLIN and family.
• Reply to at least three or four more cousins who have emailed me within the past few weeks.
• Add at least three sources from my "to be entered" folder to my RootsMagic database.

Update on January Goals and New February Goals

Well, I did okay on my January goals. Not perfect, but decent. See updates in red below.

• Complete the Intro to Genealogy course offered through the National Institute for Genealogical Studies. I started the course on 12/7 and have until 1/29 to take the exam. I am on track so far, assuming I complete the lesson for Week 4 before Wednesday. I have found the work so far to be rather easy. I suppose it's because I'm an intermediate genealogist taking a beginner's course, but it is a prerequisite to taking the more advanced courses. It has been fun reminiscing about my research in my early years of genealogy research. 

I finished the course a week early and made an A+ in the class! The class was actually called Methodology: Part I - Getting Started. The topics for the class were things like types of sources, various forms used in genealogical research, how to complete a research plan, what kinds of repositories genealogists use, how to evaluate evidence, etc. It consisted of six modules, each of which included a written assignment. The written  assignments included two case studies, one which was graded. The graded case study involved transcribing records, writing a research plan, evaluating the sources given, inferring facts from the sources given, etc. I am scheduled to start Methodology: Part II - Organizing and Skillbuilding next week.

• Complete the maintenance of cleaning up sources and events for the families of the children of my great-great-grandparents, Lovell and Alvina (Lesperance) Pemberton. I started on this family in December, and have finished with ten of the thirteen children. I am currently working on the family of Leo and Madeline (Pemberton) Carnahan. I have finished cleaning up the sources for them and their children. I am now moving on to cleaning up the Carnahan family sources that I have. I did not do any real research on the Carnahan's beyond Leo's parents and siblings, since they were a collateral line. I do have some info I gathered from online family trees for Leo's grandparents and great-grandparents, so I need to re-evaluate the sources and decide whether or not to delete the connections and move the info to the notes section of my database until I have time or inkling to do the real research. Typically, if an online tree is my only source, I prefer to keep the info in the notes before making a connection in my database. I may be able to find more primary sources in the Michigan collections at FamilySearch and Seeking Michigan. These collections did not exist four years ago when I was doing the Carnahan research. I also need to check cousin Steve's family tree for sources, as he is a Carnahan descendant and has done much more research than I have, since this is more than a collateral line for him.

I did manage to complete the maintenance for all of Lovell and Alvina's children and their collateral lines. That was quite the feat, as they had 13 children in total! I left the Carnahan links in my database, but I did move my "sources" to the notes field instead since they weren't true sources. I didn't bother to do any research in the online records at FamilySearch for the Carnahan family or any of the other collateral lines. I decided to continue trekking on in my maintenance instead. I did find a death record for Leo Carnahan's father on cousin Steve's tree, which I added as a source. I am now working on cleaning up the Chamberlain family in my database. This is the paternal line of my uncle (see February goals below and my recent posts on Arthur).

• I plan to input at least five records from my To Be Entered folder (including my own marriage record!).

No, I didn't get around to doing this. Boo. It's called being too lazy to hook up my computer to my scanner.

• I plan to index at least 500 names with FamilySearch Indexing. I have gotten bad at keeping up with this.  

I didn't quite get 500 names, but I did get 211 points. I hope to increase this in February.

• I need to write at least four emails to cousins or researchers that have emailed me within the last year about connections, getting together for visits, etc. I am VERY BAD at keeping in touch with people. I need to improve on this. 

Nope, didn't do this either. Joan, Cheryl, Steve, Virginia, I have not forgotten you! I promise!

February Goals:

• Finish cleaning up the sources and events for the CHAMBERLAIN family and begin working on the CHATTERSON family. 
• Look up my great-grandparents' and great-great-grandparents' siblings and their spouses and children in the SSDI, just in case access goes away at some point in the future. I really don't think that it will, but just in case...
• Finish my posts on Arthur CHAMBERLIN and family.
• Earn 300 points indexing at FamilySearch.
• Start my Organizing and Skillbuilding course through NIGS.

Genealogy Goals for January

Since it's the beginning of a new month in a new year, and I have the CPA exam and the wedding behind me, I am reinstating my monthly genealogy goals posts I started last spring. I think I posted them for two months and then fell behind when the wedding planning got to be too much. I think it's safe to say that 2011 was a big year for me. I passed the CPA exam, got married, quit my job I had for the last three years, and then moved back across the country from North Carolina to Louisiana (after having just moved to NC from Louisiana a year before). Now that the holidays are finally over, it's time for things to get back to "normal." This is why I have hope that I might actually keep up with my goals.

For January, this is what I hope to accomplish:

• Complete the Intro to Genealogy course offered through the National Institute for Genealogical Studies. I started the course on 12/7 and have until 1/29 to take the exam. I am on track so far, assuming I complete the lesson for Week 4 before Wednesday. I have found the work so far to be rather easy. I suppose it's because I'm an intermediate genealogist taking a beginner's course, but it is a prerequisite to taking the more advanced courses. It has been fun reminiscing about my research in my early years of genealogy research.
• Complete the maintenance of cleaning up sources and events for the families of the children of my great-great-grandparents, Lovell and Alvina (Lesperance) Pemberton. I started on this family in December, and have finished with ten of the thirteen children. I am currently working on the family of Leo and Madeline (Pemberton) Carnahan. I have finished cleaning up the sources for them and their children. I am now moving on to cleaning up the Carnahan family sources that I have. I did not do any real research on the Carnahan's beyond Leo's parents and siblings, since they were a collateral line. I do have some info I gathered from online family trees for Leo's grandparents and great-grandparents, so I need to re-evaluate the sources and decide whether or not to delete the connections and move the info to the notes section of my database until I have time or inkling to do the real research. Typically, if an online tree is my only source, I prefer to keep the info in the notes before making a connection in my database. I may be able to find more primary sources in the Michigan collections at FamilySearch and Seeking Michigan. These collections did not exist four years ago when I was doing the Carnahan research. I also need to check cousin Steve's family tree for sources, as he is a Carnahan descendant and has done much more research than I have, since this is more than a collateral line for him.
• I plan to input at least five records from my To Be Entered folder (including my own marriage record!).
• I plan to index at least 500 names with FamilySearch Indexing. I have gotten bad at keeping up with this. 
• I need to write at least four emails to cousins or researchers that have emailed me within the last year about connections, getting together for visits, etc. I am VERY BAD at keeping in touch with people. I need to improve on this.

I think five goals is plenty. I am trying not to be unrealistic with my goals. I should probably have a research goal, but I really want to finish my maintenance project. I will be so happy when my sources are cleaned up in my RootsMagic database. I think I may be happier than when I found out I passed the last part of the CPA exam! I will not be happier than I was on my wedding day, however!

Update on May Genealogy Goals (Better Late Than Never)

Well, I am finally getting around to posting on my May genealogy goals status. I didn't do as well with my May goals as I did with my April goals. Planning a wedding kind of got in the way. The poor CPA exam is just going to have to go on hold until after the wedding.

1) Add at least 5-10 more items from my "To Be Entered" folder into my RootsMagic database. - I don't think I managed to get anything added from my "To Be Entered" folder.

2) Clean up source citations for Ancestry.com databases in my RootsMagic database. I had been cleaning up sources by family, which I will continue to do, but there are some sources that can be cleaned up quickly if I fix all the citations for those sources at one time. These are the ones that usually require very little detail and very little media images. Mainly, they are the databases at Ancestry.com, such as the Michigan deaths database or the Texas birth index. - I did do a little cleanup on some California, Michigan, and Texas vital records index sources in my master source list.

3) Start adding HOFFNER/URBAN family sources to my RootsMagic database. This is my Aunt S's family line. I was going to do this last month, but I added a little more detail to my Aunt L's family line instead. Most of my sources for this will be obits I obtained a few years ago from a Louisiana newspaper and online sources, such as census records and such. They originated in New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, which are three states I'm not too familiar with, so this ought to be interesting. I'll have to see what online databases are available for these states. - This is where I had the most success. I entered all census records, military draft records, obituaries, and city directory sources that I found on Ancestry.com and in Louisiana newspapers for the HOFFNER family. I am stuck because there are two James HOFFNER's born within the same time period in Philadelphia, and I don't want to continue until I confirm which one is the correct James. To do that, I need a death record or a marriage record that names his parents. That's not something easily found online, so I'm bypassing it for now while I work on other lines in this family. I will return to it later. I am now working on entering sources for the GROFF family, which is my aunt's paternal grandmother's family. I never did get started on the URBAN line, which is my aunt's mother's line.

I'm not going to do any June goals because of all the wedding planning going on. Goals will go on hiatus until the fall.

May Genealogy Goals

Let's hope that I can stay as focused on my May genealogy goals as I did on my April ones.

1) Add at least 5-10 more items from my "To Be Entered" folder into my RootsMagic database.

2) Clean up source citations for Ancestry.com databases in my RootsMagic database. I had been cleaning up sources by family, which I will continue to do, but there are some sources that can be cleaned up quickly if I fix all the citations for those sources at one time. These are the ones that usually require very little detail and very little media images. Mainly, they are the databases at Ancestry.com, such as the Michigan deaths database or the Texas birth index.

3) Start adding HOFFNER/URBAN family sources to my RootsMagic database. This is my Aunt S's family line. I was going to do this last month, but I added a little more detail to my Aunt L's family line instead. Most of my sources for this will be obits I obtained a few years ago from a Louisiana newspaper and online sources, such as census records and such. They originated in New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, which are three states I'm not too familiar with, so this ought to be interesting. I'll have to see what online databases are available for these states.

And those are all my goals this month. I'm going to be studying again for the CPA exam, so I'm not going to get too ambitious.

Update on April Genealogy Goals

Well, I must say that I did very well on my April genealogy goals. Below are my goals and the results:

1) Finish adding marriage records from the Ohio County marriages database at FamilySearch. Currently, I have found three records for my Fink relatives. - Finished adding Fink marriages to my RootsMagic database. My great-great-great-grandfather's sister, Ella Pemberton, married Jacob Fink in 1871 and they moved from Michigan to Toledo, Ohio, sometime between 1894 and 1900. In fact, I could never find their marriage record in Michigan, except for one dated 1894, several years after all their children were born, which was strange. I just assumed they were married in Michigan since Ella's family lived there and all their children were born there between 1872 and 1890. In Jacob's affidavit for my great-great-great-grandfather's pension, he stated he had known him since his wedding to his sister in the summer of 1871. Sure enough, with the Ohio County Marriages database, I was able to find their marriage record in Toledo in 1871. They must have married in Toledo in 1871, had all their children in Michigan from 1872 to 1890, recorded their marriage a second time in Michigan in 1894 (not sure why), and then moved to Toledo between 1894 and 1900.

2) Enter and scan at least five records from my "To Be Entered" folder. Many of these are death records found at Seeking Michigan and some obituaries I found at the St. Clair County Library in Michigan last time I was there in June 2009 (yes, nearly two years ago...yikes!). A few of the other items are wedding invitations and such I've received from family members in the last two years or so. - I believe I may have entered about 10-15 items from my "to be entered" folder. I entered some San Diego City Directory info from the 1930s and 1940s for my bro-in-law's family, my cousin's wedding invitation from June 2009, my maternal grandfather's social security application, my cousin's birth announcement from a 2009 Michigan newspaper, my bro-in-law's maternal grandfather's death certificate, my paternal grandfather's death certificate and obituary, and my maternal grandfather's death certificate and obituary. Phew! Notice I didn't even get to the obituaries and death certificates mentioned in my original goal. Maybe in May.

3) Finish cleaning up the source citations and events in RootsMagic on the following families:
a) Lewis B. HERIN and Sarah A. RIPLEY - my Aunt L's great-great-grandparents
b) Lewis B. HERIN and Piety ROBERTS (same Lewis above with his second wife)
c) Ferdinand HERIN and Samantha BLEDSOE (Lewis B. HERIN's parents)
- I did manage to clean up all the sources and events for the above families, as well as enter some additional sources for siblings of my aunt's grandparents and great-grandparents. Texas is a rather easy place to find info online. I also added a marriage record search to my to-do list for my aunt's grandparents and great-grandparents and their siblings in Delta and Lamar Counties in Texas.

4) Finish entering in tombstone info found at FindAGrave for Lewis B. HERIN, Sarah A. RIPLEY, and Piety ROBERTS. - Finished this and added a few more FindAGrave entries for my aunt's HUIE relatives.

5) Start scanning and entering sources for the family of my Aunt S - the HOFFNER/URBAN family from New Jersey. - I did not start this just yet because I decided to flesh out my HERIN research, but I did review the obituaries I had in my HOFFNER and URBAN file folders. I also snagged a newspaper article I needed from the LSU library when I went to Louisiana for a few days around Easter.

Hopefully, May is just as successful as April, but I will begin studying again for the CPA exam, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

Genealogy Goals for April

Tonia over at Tonia's Roots and Tina over at Gen Wish List post their genealogy goals monthly. So, I decided that maybe that is a good idea. I seem to jump around a lot with my genealogy, and I hope that goals will keep me more focused and help me to see my accomplishments. I tend to focus on what I haven't done yet. For now, I will post my goals for the rest of April.

1) Finish adding marriage records from the Ohio County marriages database at FamilySearch. Currently, I have found three records for my Fink relatives.

2) Enter and scan at least five records from my "To Be Entered" folder. Many of these are death records found at Seeking Michigan and some obituaries I found at the St. Clair County Library in Michigan last time I was there in June 2009 (yes, nearly two years ago...yikes!). A few of the other items are wedding invitations and such I've received from family members in the last two years or so.

3) Finish cleaning up the source citations and events in RootsMagic on the following families:
a) Lewis B. HERIN and Sarah A. RIPLEY - my Aunt L's great-great-grandparents
b) Lewis B. HERIN and Piety ROBERTS (same Lewis above with his second wife)
c) Ferdinand HERIN and Samantha BLEDSOE (Lewis B. HERIN's parents)

4) Finish entering in tombstone info found at FindAGrave for Lewis B. HERIN, Sarah A. RIPLEY, and Piety ROBERTS.

5) Start scanning and entering sources for the family of my Aunt S - the HOFFNER/URBAN family from New Jersey.