Genealogical Resolutions for 2009

Each year when I review my progress on the New Year’s Resolutions I made a year previously I find that, while I’ve made progress on all my resolutions, I don’t always complete the resolutions. I suppose that the reason for this situation is that my resolutions tend to have finite goals such as “complete this task” rather than goals such as “make progress on this task”.

With that in mind, I expect that I may not complete all my goals for the coming year. Some are, indeed, difficult:

1 .  Complete the coursework for a Professional Learning Certificate in Genealogical Studies (PLCGS) through the National Institute for Genealogical Studies / University of Toronto. With graduation looming in May, I expect to complete the one final course I need to wrap up this project.
 
2 .  Complete the requirements to become a Certified Genealogist. In reality, everything I do in genealogy helps me toward this goal. I can see the finish line in sight. Will I get there this year?

3 .  Recruit a larger participation in the Danko Surname Study and the Niedziałkowski Surname Study, especially the DNA projects associated with those studies. In March, I’ll be attending the 5th International Conference on Genetic Genealogy for Family Tree DNA Group Administrators, and I hope I will learn how to jump start these projects.

4 .  Visit Poland. It’s been many years since I last visited Poland and I now know a whole lot more about my ancestors than I did when I last visited. I hope to visit archives, wander the streets of the villages where my ancestors lived, and meet my relatives. This project will take a lot of planning, but it should be fun and productive.

5 .  Enter source citation information into my genealogy database. I have been faithful at attaching source citations to the information on this blog, but I’ve been lax at transferring that information to my genealogy software. As part of this project, I intend to set up source citation templates for myself, based on Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence Explained and the Chicago Manual of Style, that reflect what I feel are the best practices for source citation.

Attempting to achieve these resolutions is a challenging goal for 2009, although the work that I’ve already accomplished in the past ten years has well prepared me to achieve them.

Written for the 63rd Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy – New Year’s Resolutions!

Copyright © 2009 by Stephen J. Danko