30 Minutes 30 Days Challenge Part 2

So as I was saying yesterday the challenge has been very helpful to me and I hope this inspires someone else. 

I also wanted to share with you some of things I did during my challenge. I started to set a timer, to let me know when to stop. That doesn't mean I stopped when it went off, but it gave me permission to stop and do something else. Like scrapbooking! Or pick up kids from school. Or just to move on. 

After about five days into the challenge I decided I needed a spreadsheet of what I had accomplished so I could see some of my progress. So, I made and excel spreadsheet.

Here are some of the things I did in the first 18 days.

 I also counted such things as attending a Genealogy Conference, listening to a webinar, because after all I need to keep learning as well as doing. I also counted tasks like adding sources to my family tree software. I use Legacy. One day I was looking at the Index in Legacy and noticed duplicates on half my people. So I had to ask on the user group how to merge duplicates and I worked on that one day. That was longer than 30 minutes. I think I know how I created that mess. I did a sync with Legacy and Family Search and I didn't finish the comparison between each person and it added everyone in as a new person. 

Live and Learn.

I did not count any indexing I did since that doesn't affect my genealogy work.

Sometimes I did searchers for a particular document, and I would record the results in my Research Log. In this case it is a negative results. I still can't find a marriage record for my Great Grandfather Joseph Hartmann b1845. 

Above are days 19 to 30.

I tried to avoid going down rabbit holes after Bright Shiny Objects but that was hard to do. So I just saved what I found. 

I have found because of all this renaming of files that I am now saving new things with the new naming convention. That is going to make things so much easier. 

Of course as I made changes and found things to check on I needed a To Do List and I made one of those. 

Nothing hard, just a name and an item that needs to be completed, and one of those is even done! I feel so accomplished. 

Well Good Luck

On to my next 30 days!

I Completed a Challenge

After reading this blog post, I decided to complete the challenge of 30 minutes for 30 days to do some small genealogy tasks. I am very pleased to say that it has been successful. I would also recommend it to you. It is a great way to tackle those big jobs and feel like you are accomplishing something. I have to say after a few days I began to feel a weight lifted off of me as I knew the tasks I dreaded were beginning to show progress. 

Some days I was so enjoying the process that I did spend more than 30 minutes doing whatever caught my interest. One night just after getting into bed I realized I hadn't done my 30 minutes so I got up and works on some files.  So, I am a little excited about this challenge.

Don't get me wrong I still have lots to do but I see progress and that makes it seem doable. I have already decided I will be doing this again, starting today.

I started on 17 October and finished yesterday the 15 November.
I started by reorganizing my computer files. I had folders on my external hard drive, on my new computer, and in Dropbox. I took the folders and placed them on my new computer and began to rename the folders and rename the files. So things label My Dad or Grandpa William now had formal names like: 

Hartmann, George J b1912  or Chaplin, William T b1884

So here is a shot of the first level of my Genealogy folders.

I put the 1 in front of my Genealogy folders so they 

are at the top of folder lists. 

Here is a shot of the Family Name Folders or Surnames. I still have more names to work on but this is as far as I have gotten so far. 

This is inside the Hartmann folder. adding the year they are were born helps me know which George I am dealing with, or on other lines which William. Family names were definitely pasted down. 

Above is the screenshot of my Dad's folder. I like how the date added to the document or picture makes a timeline of his life.  Being accurate in type really helps, I had to re-name my files more than once some time, to correct typos and extra spaces. I noticed this morning I still have to make a decision about how to label my transcriptions files.  I have two copies of his Birth Certificate transcription. Do I want them under each document or as a group at the bottom? I can see advantages to both. I don't have to decide today but I do soon, so I can be consistent. That is the key.

It was surprising how much time this takes to complete, but it will be worth it when it is finished. I will be able to find things and so will my daughters who will follow my work. 

This post is getting long so I will break it into two parts. More coming tomorrow. 

Have a great day and good luck with the search.