2020 Genealogy Goals

Before I lay out my goals for 2020, let's review how I did in 2019.

D.A.R. Membership

For many reasons, this did not go anywhere in 2019. Those reasons were mostly personal, so there are no genealogy lessons to share but I am much more hopeful for 2020. This month I started working on some locality guides for the places I know I will have to research; Nassau County and Brooklyn, NY.

Sharing My Research

It was my goal to start a new tree on Ancestry that would be public and well documented up to my 2nd great-grandparents. I didn't quite get as far as I wanted before my Ancestry membership ran out in May, but I was close.

After my Ancestry membership expired, I took advantage of a promotion by My Heritage for a year's subscription. I didn't get too far with this earlier in the year because I was very frustrated with the site. I've now gone back and added bare-bones information on all of my known direct ancestors to my 2nd great-grandparents and all of the siblings of my ancestors through my great-grandparents.

Passenger Lists

I didn't get anywhere finding Mathilda Johnson, my great-grandmother, in passenger lists, but I put this on hold fairly early.

Education

I did not read Dr. Jones' Mastering Genealogical Documentation in its entirety or Mastering Genealogical Proof at all this year. I did start the first book over again and am now about half-way through. I have read Blaine Bettinger's Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy, 1st edition, and watched several of his presentations on Family Tree Webinars. I also watched the presentations from The Board for Certification of Genealogy's Joy Reisinger Memorial Lecture Series and attended the Utah Genealogical Society's virtual conference, both were fantastic learning opportunities.

Research Trip

In May, my mother and I visited cousins in Ottawa. While we were there we visited a cemetery with some distant cousins that we met through Ancestry, visited another on our own and went to the Gatineau, Quebec branch of the Biblioteque and Archives Nationales du Québec where we saw my 2nd great-grandfather's journal.

Monument for Justice Parker and Philinda Gage, Rideauvale Cemetery, Kars, ON

Giving Back

Although I didn't do as much indexing for Family Search as I had hoped, I did a fair amount. I also posted an honor roll transcription every month this year as part of Heather Wilkinson Rojo's Honor Roll Project.

Window dedicated to Gold Star Mothers, Freeport Memorial Library

Preservation and Scanning

I was able to rescan my grandfather's black paper albums, share the images with family and an archive and made progress on archiving the albums properly.

And that brings me to my goals for 2020.

DAR Membership

In addition to collecting documentation for my first three generations, I have created a research log for each person who's birth, death and marriage needs to be documented for my application, but I'll be able to plan better after I meet with the registrar at the local DAR chapter. It isn't that I don't have a rough idea of what I need, it's more like what the DAR will accept as proof because, as we all know, documentation gets more difficult as we go further back. I only get as far back as my 2nd great-grandparents before I begin to encounter record loss due to fires, etc.

Donald's Family/New York City and Italy

Researching Donald's family is giving me many opportunities to learn. I am starting with his Italian side. My immediate goals are to get as much information as I can from his dad (some of my research has given me more questions than answers) and to create a locality guide for New York City. Once I am confident that I have traced his family to the correct villages in Italy, I will create locality guides for those places as well.

Sharing My Research

I will continue to build public trees for my family and for Donald's out to our 2nd great-grandparents on Ancestry, My Heritage and Find My Past. These trees will include the siblings of all direct ancestors wherever possible.

Education

I've been looking into some intermediate and advanced education for 2020. It will have to be virtual, so I am hoping that SLIG (Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy) Virtual will offer another Intermediate Foundations course in 2020 as they did this fall.

I've also renewed my Legacy Family Tree webinar membership and I'll be keeping my eyes open for other opportunities.

Research Trip

Sometime after the weather warms up in the spring, I will be traveling to Quebec again. This time I will be visiting Thetford Mines, the birthplace of my mother and maternal grandfather, to visit their archives. I have plans to visit at least three cemeteries as well, maybe up to five depending on the final length of the trip and, of course, weather.

I'm sure that my DAR application will lead me to more research travel in 2020. Whether that will mean day trips or longer remains to be seen.

Giving Back

I'm feeling a very strong pull to get more involved in photographing headstones. I plan to photograph the East Hillside Cemetery in Glen Head and to continue to photograph stones at the Mount Saint Mary Cemetery in Flushing where Donald's grandmother is buried. I would love to photograph the whole cemetery, along with Cedar Hill Cemetery in Port Jefferson where my father is buried, but they are both very large cemeteries and far enough from home to make that unrealistic.

I will continue to contribute transcriptions to the Honor Roll Project. I'm not sure I will have a post every month in 2020, but I have posts ready to go through March and have photos for two more.

Family Search indexing is something I really believe we should all contribute to but this year it felt like a chore for some reason. Still, when it's too cold and/or snowy to visit cemeteries and memorials, I do plan to keep indexing. As was pointed out by LaBrenda Garrett Nelson in her excellent lecture for the UGA Virtual conference (which is also available on Legacy Family Tree Webinars), indexing handwritten documents is an excellent way to practice reading old handwriting. There is nothing wrong with using our volunteer time to learn something for ourselves.

Preservation and Scanning

This year's goal is to scan, share and properly archive all of the photos, negatives, and slides I have for my Smith line; my maternal grandfather's family.

Blogging
Because I did so little research this year, my blogging material consisted mostly of my Honor Roll posts. I certainly hope to have more material for blogging this year. My current goal is to post at least once per month in addition to posts for the Honor Roll Project but I hope to have more material than that!

So I guess I'm feeling just as ambitious as I did last year at this time. I just hope I can make more progress in 2020 and I am wishing the same for all of you!

Genealogy FOREVER, housework WHENEVER!!