12 Genealogy Goals for 2012

Last December I made 11 genealogy goals to accomplish in 2011.  How did I do?

1. Attend the 2011 Southern California Genealogy Jamboree – DONE – I had a blast attending the lectures and hanging out with friends.
2. Obtain a public speaking “gig” on a genealogical topic – DONE – Done times two.  Both talks were in October.  The first, Finding Your Eastern European Ancestors in Russian Consular Records, was presented at the fall conference of the Polish Genealogical Society of Connecticut and the Northeast.  The second, Blogging Your Genealogy, was presented at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. I enjoyed giving both presentations very much.
3. FIND the Polish birth record of Elizabeth Miller Pater (Elżbieta Müller) – FAIL – Still no luck in tracking down her birth record although I did research where some of the Czech communities were in Poland.
4. Put my 2-year-old research plan into action to find the death dates of my 2nd great-grandparents in Bavaria – FAIL – It’s nice to have a plan, but it’s better to put it in action. I just never got around to it.
5. Post more frequently here (my goal from the blog’s beginning was always 3/week or 12/month) – FAIL – I’ll finish the year with 40 posts here plus 8 at The Catholic Gene, the new collaborative blog I started this year.  But that’s far less than last year’s total of 71, which I thought was low. I did start off well in January, though!
6. View the box of photos that my one cousin has in his possession (or get a restraining order put in against me while trying…LOL) – HALF DONE – The “box” may or may not be a box. But by year’s end the cousin did send me two photos to scan and allowed me to keep one, so that’s a plus!
7. Get back to writing for some genealogy magazines, even if it’s only a few articles – HALF DONE – I had two articles published this year.
8. Either get back to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City or at least rent a few films from my local one – FAIL – I visited my local FHC, but when a trip to SLC popped up on my radar I decided to wait since it’s actually more cost effective to view the films on site!
9. Find the marriage record for Stanisław Piątkowski & Apolonia Konopka – DONE – This was accomplished early in the year, and was much easier than I had anticipated! Read all about it in Finding Polish Records Online.
10. Get organized by starting my database over from scratch to include all source information – FAIL – I thought about it, does that count?
11. Re-visit Poland and explore some of my ancestral towns – FAIL – The possible trip was postponed, but may happen in 2012.  Stay tuned!

While 11 goals may have been too many to accomplish, my overachieving, overly optimistic self will now present my list of 12 goals for 2012!  This time I tried to make them more attainable.

1. Find the birth record for my great-great-grandfather, Stanisław Piątkowski, in what is now Mogilev, Belarus.
2. Find the marriage record for the parents of my great-grandmother, Rozalia Kizoweter/Kiziewieter.
3. Find all my relatives in the 1940 Census which will finally be released on April 2, 2012!
4. Track down a half-cousin, the grandson of my great-grandfather’s half brother Julius Goetz.
5. See Pennsylvania death records go online for the first time! When Pennsylvania Vital Records Bill SB-361 (Act 110 of 2011) becomes law on February 13th, 2012, death certificates over 50 years old and birth certificates over 105 years old will be “open” records.  Hopefully it won’t take long for one of the online sites to provide them.
6. Convert the place names in my database to accurate names. Rather than tackle the goal of re-doing my entire database like I said last year, I hope to at least ensure that all of the place names reflect the accurate boundaries of the time of the person’s life event. As many of my ancestors are Polish and the boundaries changed frequently, this is bigger than it sounds.
7. Attend the United Polish Genealogical Societies conference in Salt Lake City in April despite the fact that no agenda has been announced yet.
8. Visit the Family History Library while I’m in Salt Lake City and continue filling in the details on my Polish and Bavarian families.
9. Write three posts I’ve been meaning to write for a while. So I can prove I did it last year, I will list the topics: Józef Pater, an update on the missing sister, and Grace Goetz.
10. Connect with the “other” Bergmeister cousins that may not be aware of our side of the family. These cousins are the descendants of my great-grandfather’s brother, Ignaz.
11. Once again, put my now-3-year-old research plan into action to find the death dates of my 2nd great-grandparents in Bavaria.
12. And finally, once again….FIND the Polish birth record of Elizabeth Miller Pater (Elżbieta Müller). I know where she came from, I just can’t seem to find the record.  Yet.  This will be my year!

Following the lead of my friends Denise (The Family Curator) and Amy (The We Tree Genealogy Blog), I’ve asked a genealogy buddy to help me meet three specific goals in the areas of Organization, Research, and Writing.  For Organization, I choose Goal #6 above.  For Research, many of the above 12 deal with researching, but I choose Goals #1 and 2 for the buddy project.  And for Writing, I choose Goal #9.  My Genealogy Buddy that will kick my butt encourage me to accomplish these tasks?  None other than the organizing, researching, writing wizard herself, Lisa Alzo, The Accidental Genealogist.  If Lisa can’t whip me into shape, no one can!

Best of luck on meeting all of your genealogical goals in 2012!