Finishing the unfinished or where to I go from here in the coming year.

It seems that setting goals in my home is like a Salmon trying to swim upstream. With 9 children, 14 grandchildren and 3 more expected this year, plus a son getting married I often feel like I am doing just that; swimming upstream. So as I set down to make goals for the coming year I am sure that there will be days when life will get in the way and not everything will get done. But like all goals during the year I will have to stop, reevaluate, change and possibly delete a few of the goals made in an optimistic moment.
I used to wonder what an out of work mother would do with her time. I had visions of all the time in the world to do genealogy, hang out with my husband and wonder around my very large very empty home. I’m glad I was wrong. Dan isn’t retired and still works out of town a lot hence no husband to wander around the house with but there are always grandchildren and activities to fill my time and house. So as I set goals for the coming year I have to not only included my goals in genealogy but my goals with my family as well.
Like most genealogists my To Do List is never ending, technology never stands still, and the work is never finished. However setting goals and making lists always helps so my list of need to do’s for the coming year needs to go something like this.,
1. Spend time with my grandchildren and family.
2. Learn how to use the new computer I got for Christmas which will make my work easier and faster.
3. Organize my work so that it can go with me whenever I travel with Dan. That way my days in the motel room while he works will be days of great accomplishment.
4. Indexing 300 names a month for family search.
5. Create at least 3 new lectures.
6. Create my own web page to share my research on.
7. Continue to organize and clean up my earliest work with clear and proper documentation.
8. Continue improving my lectures and classes and expanding my audiences.
9. Spending at least 5 hours a week helping someone else accomplish their genealogical goals.
10. Continue my own education by attending at least 3 seminars, speaking at least two others and finishing the NGS home study course.
Sounds easy enough on paper however there is a lot of work involved in these few lines. My first job will be to print these goals when I get home from Utah, put them in a prominent place on my desk and begin the work. Each week I will try to spend a few minutes evaluating my progress and make a mental note or maybe even an occasional note as to my progress.
I hope that all who read this will take the time to make their own mental to do lists. Remember that Genealogy is a never ending task. There is always something new to learn and we can all grow and develop our talents in this area.

Family Traditions and the genealogist

When I first started my research my husbands grandmother insisted that her father was a merchant from Ireland living in Oklahoma in the early 1900's. He had died shortly before she was born and so she never met him. Apparently her mother traveled back to Texas to see family in 1907 and he died in Oklahomas during her visit. The wife and the mother never got along very well so my grandmothers mother never went back to Oklahoma. He had a step brother living somewhere in Oklahoma in a rest home and his grave was somewhere on the road to Fort Smith Arkansas in a small town called Pittsburg Oklahoma. From grandma Burrow's story a tradition was born. Like all traditions there is always a bit or maybe a lot of truth. It is up to the researcher to prove and disprove the story and glean the facts from among the fiction. Turning over every stone and learning from each clue given.

Facts: According to the 1900 census Grandma's father did live in Oklahoma in the early 1900's. He is buried in a small cemetery near the highway between Texas and Fort Smith Arkansas. The city however was Wilberton and the county Latimer. He was born in Louisiana and adopted as an infant by the Aimes famil,Possible relatives of his own parents. When he was seven or eight his adopted father walked out with an other woman and left he and his mother alone on the Indian Reservation in the Choctaw nation. She remarried a pig farmer and after his death her grandfather changed his name from Ainsworth to Hollenbeck.

Did the traditions match the facts? No but the clues were there and by listening and then searching the clues the facts became apparant. So often the genealogist gets caught up in the traditions and forgets that they may not be the whole story. Or even sadder they may get caught up in the facts and not look for the stories that made their ancestors real people. Both are important and alone neither tell a complete story. Combining the facts with the traditions lead to a good history of your family.