January 2

January 2 – Formulate several goals and develop a solid research strategy for achieving them.

Developing a genealogy research plan is the essential first step to making ancestral breakthroughs. Adapt this easy five-point strategy to suit your needs.

1.       Set an objective: What do you want to learn, your ancestor’s marriage date? His spouse’s name? Where the couple was living in 1836? Be as specific as possible

2.       Note the facts: Record what you know from original documents and records. Include names and spelling variations, family relationships and dates of birth, death and marriage

3.       Develop a hypothesis: Make some guesses based on what you know. Estimate when your ancestors married, speculate on the spouse’s name, and consider probable hometowns.

4.       Seek your sources: Research which records will likely prove (or disprove) your hypothesis. Find out if they’re available, where and in what format. List all the options.

5.       Take action: Decide the order in which you’ll seek the records, and how to get to them.

Some of my goals for this year are as follows:

1.       Find out more about John Thielke. Now that I found his parent’s name from his marriage certificate, find out siblings, when and where his parents died. I found his mother living in Wisconsin in 1860 but I don’t find John on any Census for the same year, yet he was in the US by 1860 according to a later Census record.

2.       Work on my genealogy class materials. Make adjustments to handouts and PowerPoint as needed. Get this done by the 20^th of January.

3.       Work on my Hilts and Hiltz Cousin Blog. Follow up on some leads on some of the unknown lines. Make contact with fellow researchers and see where they got their information from.

Those are my beginning goals for 2012. I know to keep them simple and go from there. As I accomplish a goal, then I can add another in its place.