1) What excites you about genealogy research? What part
of performing genealogy and family history research really excites you - what
keeps you coming back day after day?
Here’s mine:
Generally, I
spend four to five hours a day on some type of genealogy. Some days more, some
days less.
I have “completed”
much of the genealogy of my children’s ancestors up to the five generations and
nearly finished up to six, with a couple of exceptions: research in Counties Cork
and Tipperary, and a Swedish line. Besides the direct ancestors, I have spent a
lot of time researching collateral family members in each generation, at least
by a generation or two.
Any research
that I do now is mostly filling in details about land, probate, and tax records
as I write biographies of the family. As new digital images come online, I
replace digital for paper copies in my files.
I have done offline
research where there are no images available in the FamilySearch catalog. I send
emails to local record offices asking for copies of records or look for a local
researcher to do the pulls for me.
As more newspapers
are digitized, I find many articles that can add details to family stories. It’s
also fun to find little details about ancestor’s everyday life.
With most of
the research completed, I am writing more now. Some research is done to
supplement the stories I write for my two blogs. Some is done for biographies
for my files. When I do research, I am writing up the research results more. I
have also written some articles that have been published in historical society
and genealogy journals.
I read
several blogs daily, genealogy journals monthly or quarterly, and watch
webinars to keep up with genealogy methodology. Other writing that I do is
preparing lesson plans and presentations that I give to a local adult school,
local genealogy societies, and to students in my new business, Applied
Genealogy Institute. Teaching others about genealogy is the best.
I need to
select a couple of projects to write up for my upcoming BCG recertification. Likely
I’ll write up a KDP-like document on one of my family lines and perhaps a
detailed research report on another problem I have recently solved.
But Lisa, you didn't sound excited! I wanna see you jump up and down! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm not a jump up and down kind of gal.
DeleteNewspapers will keep us all busy for a long time as more and more are digitized. I think they are my most fun resource at the moment because, as you say, articles add many details about our ancestors' lives that otherwise might be lost to time.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely most fun. I discovered yesterday, that the great-great uncle who was a Catholic priest went to Chile for nearly a year. I never knew that. Found the leaving and returning articles about it.
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