Genealogy New Year's Resolutions for 2011

Devote the year to my paternal grandfather's ancestors. While searching for thirty direct line ancestors is still a major undertaking, it has to be more productive than looking for everybody.

Request receive records from churches, courthouses, and other
repositories. Over the years I lost track of many unanswered record requests. This year I will follow through until the documents I need are in my hands.

Take four cemetery road trips, connecting with living relatives along the way. Most of my ancestors settled out of state, but conveniently close to children, grandchildren and cousins. This year I hope to find a better balance between time with the living and time with the dead.

Write Grandma stories and share them. So much oral history dies with the narrators. I want to write down the stories my children are tired of hearing now, but may wish they remembered in later years.

Attend monthly meetings at the local genealogy society. They may not be able to help me geographically, but connecting with other researchers is a must for a sometimes solitary hobby.

Go to a genealogical conference this year and choose one for next year. I want to travel, learn new research methods, meet interesting people.

Combine scrapbooking and genealogy. Scan and digitize old photos. Preserve hard copies of pictures. Archive online photos off-site. Organize, label and safely store slides and negatives. Share pictures with relatives. Create heirloom photo albums.

Back up computer files off-site and to external hard drive regularly. For someone who experienced a computer crash, I've gotten awfully relaxed about backing up all my hard work.

Continue adding to Find A Grave until my contributions average one a day. Fill photo requests during my cemetery road trips. 

Talk, write, share. Tweet 200 times. Blog 100 times. Update my family history website 50 times. Do this for my grandkids and for their grandkids.