I honestly feel like 2021 has flown by. that might be because I took on 2 big projects that became full time jobs – literally 7 days a week – for 3 months each – my county history project and my one-place study of St. Dimitry’s Church in Udol, Slovakia.
However, the end of December means it’s time to review my 2021 genealogy goals. Even though the days went by quickly, I also have to admit I don’t even remember the goals I set for this year. I remember they were modest, so I dug back in the posts for December 2020 and found my list:
To recap, here is the short list I set for 2021:
- Continue to give back to the genealogy community.
- Continue to work on brick walls in both family trees.
- Continue my genealogy education.
- I use RootsMagic 7 and have decided to focus on cleaning up my source citations (which may or may not be with those darned templates).
How well did I do at accomplishing my four goals?
1. Having compiled links to all the thousands of digitized county histories I could find and providing links to them on this blog, I think I made an excellent contribution to the genealogy community this year. I have also completed my one-place study of Udol, Slovakia. Even though that is much more specific to a smaller group of family historians, there are thousands of descendants in the U.S. who have roots back to Udol and Hajtovka, Slovakia. I also returned about 6 rescued ancestral photos found online to family descendants. I’m pleased with my accomplishments for Goal #1.
2. Thanks to The Register, published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, several of my ancestral lines were documented back as early as the 1400s. I take no credit for that work, but it did extend several more of my early Massachusetts settlers. On my husband’s side of the family, I did crack open several of his Scots-Irish ancestors, who migrated into early Kentucky and had ties to Daniel Boone. Therefore, the ancestor count has gone up in both family trees. Goal #2 accomplished.
3. Covid has continued to impact our in-person activities, so there was no travel to any type, near or far, of in-person events for me this year. On the other hand, I attended 100+ online webinars and several virtual conferences, including the Texas State Genealogical Society and the Czechoslovak Genealogical Society. I really enjoyed both of those and learned a lot. I also met new genea-buddies online. I also decided to mix it up a bit this eyar and joined a couple of new societies, the Carpatho-Rusyn Society to supplement my knowledge of my Rusyn roots and the Chula Vista (California) Genealogical Society because (1) I have greatly enjoyed their programs online this past year and (2) even though I now live in Arizona, I still miss SoCal! Goal #3 accomplished.
4. I will admit upfront that I spent very little time working with those source citation templates. There were just too many other much more fun genea-activities to do! It also crossed my mind that with RootsMagic 8 coming out that I might not want to go through the frustratingly boring activity of those source templates in version 7 when there was a possibility that RM8 would introduce an easier and less painful (to me) way of using the templates. RootsMagic 8 was finally released in 2021, so I guess the day of reckoning with those templates will arrive in 2022 for me. Miserably little progress has been made on Goal #4.
Goals for 2022
Although I accomplished three of my four goals in 2021, they are general enough that each can still be pursued in 2022. I don’t see the need to change any of them, so here they are:
1. Continue to give back to the genealogy community.
One of my favorite activities is rescuing orphaned photos for sale online. I will continue to scout out photos to re-home. I also plan to actively help those who reach out to me and to offer suggestions and help to others as the opportunities present themselves, likely through conferences and genealogical society events.
2. Continue to expand the family trees.
Given the dearth of records in the time periods in which I am researching, cracking through brick walls in any major way is unlikely. However, I really like Jacqi Stevens’s 12 Most Wanted for 22 plan on A Family Tapestry to focus on one family per month to see what new details can be uncovered about the life of that family. My January focus is going to be the Patorai family, who might not be Patorais at all and it has nothing to do with DNA discoveries! I’ll choose my other focus families as the year goes on, following those who strike my fancy!
3. Continue my genealogy education.
While I love one-off monthly webinars and will continue to add many of them, I am going to focus more on selected conferences. I was looking forward to an in-person NGS conference in Sacramento, California this spring. However, I am not a risk taker and I somehow doubt that Omicron will be finished – and if it is, will likely be replaced by whatever the next version of covid turns out to be. That means I will probably not attend any in-person conferences this year.
If NGS offers a virtual format, attending that conference will be high on my list, in spite of the cost.
The Carpatho-Rusyn Society conference will also rank high on the list because I learned so much about Rusyn history and life at their 2021 conference.
RootsTech will be totally virtual again in 2022. That is a no-brainer in terms of attending because there are so many excellent speakers and it has the best price of all – free!
I had considered SLIG in Salt Lake in 2022. However, since it was supposed to be in-person and I was unsure of covid implications, I didn’t try to enroll in any class. Now that it’s switched to virtual, there are no seat available in the session I would attend, so SLIG remains a possibility in some future year.
I will decide conference by conference, based on sessions offered, as to which others I will virtually attend in 2022.
4. Clean up my source citations in RootsMagic using RM8. I will heavily rely on lessons and experiences posted by Randy Seaver on Genea-Musings and Marcia Crawford Philbrick on Heartland Genealogy. Both have shared experiences using RootsMagic 8. I really need to get this source citation stuff cleaned up this year. Once I get going, I hope I will be motivated to keep at it since there won’t be any fun travel to disrupt my work!
That’s it for 2002. Those goals will keep me busy. 🙂
What do you have planned for 2022?
Love your links to digitized county histories! I shared the links with several local genealogy groups and they were quite amazed at what you pulled together. Thank you so much. Also, like you, I’m playing it safe with virtual participation in genealogy events during 2022. All my best wishes for another productive and rewarding year in 2022!
You did some very fine work last year with the county history project and your one-town project. Good job! I think your goals are very doable. I was really looking forward to an in-person conference in Sacramento, especially since it’s in our backyard, but I fear, like you, that the virus will still be with us enough that in-person conference will not be safe. Good luck on your goals for 2022!
You have done a lot for the genealogy community and the work you’ve done in Udol may be the most important since such communities tend to be under-served.