My Personal New Year's Genealogy Resolutions

[This post is part of the 87th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy hosted by Jasia at Creative Gene.]

Here is list of my personal genealogy goals for 2010:

1. Continue Genealogy Education

For the next 12 months I will continue to participate in ProGen 4 as part of my genealogy education plan. I started in September 2009 and currently the program is slated to end in March 2011.

So far I've found the assignments, the peer review process and the discussions very helpful. In fact it was the ProGen lesson on formulating an education plan which helped me deside on another component of my education: participation in the Boston University Online Genealogy Research cerficate program.

I will start on January 13, 2010 and over the course of 14 weeks will cover quite a bit of terrain led by some excellently qualified instructors. I am really looking forward to the BU classes and will report on them periodically through the Destination: Austin Family blog.

2. Pursue Certification

While I understand that there is no uniform standard of certification in the field of genealogy, and that there are several certifying bodies that one can work with to achieve different types of certification, for me it is important to attain some type of credential.

I am not looking to have some post-nominal such as CG after my name just for the sake of having it, nor am I trying to say that I am better or more qualified than other genealogists. For me it is simply a goal and the path to that goal means I will be a better educated and more well-rounded genealogist.

I also hope to determine whether the certification process can benefit from some of the emerging technologies that I and others have started to adopt in pursuing our research as well as marketing our services. And again, the value of having a genealogy blog is the willingness to report back to my readers on the process itself as well as the insights I've gained.

3. Separate Personal From Professional

Since I started the GeneaBloggers.com website in January 2009, I've neglected to keep my personal genealogy and professional genealogy personas separate. This can cause some confusion especially for newcomers to the world of genealogy blogging.

I need to Twitter more under my own id which is @tmacentee instead of @geneabloggers. Also, on Facebook I need to utilize the GeneaBloggers group and GeneaBloggers fan page for communications rather than my own personal page.

While I will probably always be identified with GeneaBloggers, I think keeping personal and professional activities separate will have lots of benefits in the long-run as well as help me build GeneaBloggers as a brand.

4. Participate in More Carnivals and Daily Blogging Themes

There is no reason why I shouldn't walk the walk about these great genealogy blogging activities since I am always talking the talk about them over at GeneaBloggers. With my busy schedule I can pre-post as much as possible but I know I have quite a few ways to tell the stories of my ancestors through the Destination: Austin Family blog.

5. Preserve More Documents

This means more scanning and more transcribing. I have fallen behind and I just need to commit myself to doing this.

6. Develop My Lowville Site

Since I switched hosting companies for my Lowville Long Ago site, I have retained the domain name but I did not re-establish the wiki using MediaWiki software.

I want to establish a site similar to the Albany Hill Towns wiki which I helped develop in late 2008.

7. Display My Tree

I have a rather ingenious way of displaying both maternal and paternal sides of my family tree in my home office. I have the concept set on paper - I just need to execute it and then describe the process on my blog.

That's it - seven simple ways of improving myself and my genealogy. Simple, right? I hope to do a check-in right after Jamboree in late June 2010 and report my results right here.

© 2009, copyright Thomas MacEntee