It’s hard to believe we’re already into Week 2 of the New Year. Many of us in the genealogy community have blogged about the personal research and/or professional goals we’ve set for 2012, and some of us have partnered with a genea-buddy to help us reach them.

You can read about my research/writing goals in my “Twelve for ’12” post. My genea-buddy is Donna Pointkouski, author of the What’s Past is Prologue Blog and author/creator of The Catholic Gene Blog.

The Goals

Donna and I each broke down our goals into three main categories: Writing, Research, and Organizational (based on a similar system used by fellow Bloggers, Denise Levenick of The Family Curator, and Amy Coffin of the We Tree Blog).

I’m reporting my progress to Donna on the following:

Writing: Finish a new nonfiction book–draft by 4/1/12; final product published by the end of 2012 (big dreams here, but really want to make it happen!)

Research: 1) My paternal grandmother’s brother, Mihaly Fencsak who moved to Argentina; 2) My maternal grandmother’s brother Istvan Straka who stayed in Slovakia

Organizing: Purging paper files; 2) Going as paperless as possible; 3) Organizing my office.

We’ve set up a shared document in Google Docs (we titled it: “The Slavic Pennsylvania Gals’ 2012 Genealogy Buddy Goal Project”) where we can make notes and report our progress. I this first week, we have e-mailed each other updates and even talked on the phone.

Here’s how I did in my first week:

Writing: “The Book” – I have been writing for at least 30 minutes per day. Usually 15 minutes in the morning, and 15 minutes at night. Focusing now on the Preface/Introduction.

Research: I haven’t made much progress yet. I hope to do some research at the Family History Library in February. I’m also working with a professional researcher based in Slovakia and need to decide where to send him next.

Organizational: I fear this task will be the most difficult because it truly seems never-ending! I have purged about six file boxes, and have made efforts to go paperless by scanning documents, arranging for electronic subscriptions for magazines, etc. when possible and switching over to e-bills and e-statements.

The Buddy System: It Works for Me

I like the accountability factor of the genea-biuddy system. I feel like I have done a pretty good job thus far. As we go further into 2012, I hope that I can keep up the pace. I really want to score a slam dunk on these goals!

So, how did you do this week? Have you made any genea-progress?

Copyright, 2012, Lisa A. Alzo

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