{"id":12184,"date":"2016-01-04T11:09:56","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T16:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=12184"},"modified":"2021-04-21T11:23:33","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T15:23:33","slug":"genealogy-resolution-for-the-new-year-make-a-to-do-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/genealogy-resolution-for-the-new-year-make-a-to-do-list.html","title":{"rendered":"Genealogy Resolution for the New Year: Make a \u2018To-Do\u2019 List"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/em><\/strong>: Gena Philibert-Ortega is a genealogist and author of the book \u201cFrom the Family Kitchen.<\/span>\u201d In this blog article, Gena settles on one New Year\u2019s genealogy resolution for 2016 that she\u2019s determined to follow.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yikes! Where did 2015 go? I feel like another year has flown by and I\u2019m still not where I want to be with the genealogy goals I wrote down in December 2014. I don\u2019t know about you but I\u2019m just not a New Year\u2019s resolution person. Sure, I have great intentions. I feel motivated on January 1st and still fairly committed by the end of the month. But then February comes and goes and then March and I start justifying my continuing procrastination with promises that \u201cI\u2019ll accomplish that stuff during the summer when it\u2019s not as busy.\u201d Oh, sure I will. Life gets busy, stuff happens, and then pretty soon it\u2019s December 31st again.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re like me, try sticking to just one New Year\u2019s genealogy resolution: make a to-do list for those moments when you can say \u201cI have an hour to work on my genealogy.\u201d By creating a family history research to-do list you can refer back to it when you\u2019re ready, and not feel the pressure and disappointment that will inevitably come on December 31st when you realize you never tackled a long list of New Year\u2019s genealogy resolutions.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: New Year\u2019s resolutions postcards from the early 20th century. Source: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I spent some time looking over my genealogy database recently I realized I could do a better job adding information from newspapers, such as those in GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a>. The following ideas from my 2016 genealogy to-do list might be some you could incorporate into your own.<\/p>\n

Go Back and Utilize Name Variations<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve talked about it before and believe me, I have been guilty of not heeding my own advice. I\u2019ve noticed that when I\u2019ve missed newspaper articles about the person I was researching it\u2019s often because I didn\u2019t take into consideration name variations, misspellings, and use of initials. For example, one of the women I am researching was married twice, went by a name other than her given first name, used her first husband\u2019s surname even when married to her second husband because that was her \u201cprofessional\u201d name, and used her initials instead of her first name! Because of all this, here are some of the name variations I have to take into consideration when searching for Eleanore G. Burdick Stetson Dederick:<\/p>\n