Saturday, August 15, 2009

Saturday Day Night Genealogy Fun - Your UGG

It's Saturday Night again - are you ready for some Genealogy Fun? I thought so.

Here is your assignment if you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music):

1) Answer these questions:

* What is your UGG - your "Ultimate Genealogy Goal" for the genealogy research that you wish to leave to your heirs, descendants and the genealogy community?

* How long do you think you have left to fulfill this ultimate goal?

* Are you prioritizing your time adequately in order to achieve this goal?

* If not, what should you do to achieve the goal?

* Will you do what you need to do?

2) Tell us about it in a blog post on your own blog, or in comments to this post or on Facebook.

Here are my answers:

1) My "Ultimate Genealogy Goal" has been to publish a fully documented set of genealogy books - in paper and digital format - of my own ancestry, my wife's ancestry, and for the Seaver and Carringer surnames.

2) I think that I have ten years or less left in order to do this. I'm 65 now, my dad died at 71, my mom at 82, I'm overweight and don't exercise much (except for mind and fingers!).

3) I have not prioritized my time adequately in order to achieve these goals. If I'm lucky, I spend maybe 5 to 10 hours each week on doing genealogy research.

4) To achieve the ultimate goal, I SHOULD stop blogging, stop spending time on Facebook, Twitter, GenWise, reading blogs, etc. and live in San Diego (4 months), Salt Lake City (4 months) and Boston (4 months) in order to do sufficient research on my ancestral families and Seaver/Carringer families. This assumes that I continue to have a "real life" with my wife, children, grandchildren and friends.

5) No chance. My Genealogy Life is too much fun blogging, reading blogs, planning and presenting programs, going to society meetings and conferences, checking out software and websites, etc.

I could re-prioritize my time fairly easily to spend 25 to 30 hours per week on my genealogy research and working toward my goals.

I could revise my Ultimate Genealogy Goal to something more reasonable like "having decent genealogy reports in digital form that can be distributed in print or digital format to descendants, relatives and selected genealogy websites at my passing."

This wasn't that much fun, was it? But it's a necessary question, and I hope that each of you think about your Ultimate Genealogy Goal and how to achieve it.

12 comments:

Susi's Quarter said...

This one is easy for me thanks. Will post it later.
Susi

Carol said...

My first submission, interesting subject/set of questions.

http://reflectionsfromthefence.blogspot.com/2009/08/randy-seavers-saturday-night-genealogy.html

Elyse said...

Randy - Great challenge! How do you come up with all of these wonderful prompts?

Here is my response! http://tinyurl.com/kj8h5u

Elizabeth O'Neal said...

Dream big, Randy!

Here's mine: http://bit.ly/GhWv0

RS said...

Love it! Here are my answers.

http://bit.ly/8p9Gp

Bill West said...

Hi Randy,
My post at "West in New England":

http://tinyurl.com/nzmudp

M. Diane Rogers said...

My goodness, Randy!
Here are my thoughts:
Ultimate Genealogy Goals

Karen K said...

Hi Randy!
I blog over at Genealogy Frame Of Mind and this morning I blogged this morning with your questions, linking back to you of course!
Great questions - thanks for the blog its Great! If you would like to read my response its at:
http://genealogyframeofmind.blogspot.com/
Thanks! Karen

Diana Ritchie said...

Wow Randy - thanks for the wake up call! This was a great exercise - even if I am a little late completing it. I've blogged about my response over at Random Relatives.

Carol said...

Good one, Randy - mine is at

http://family-ancestors.blogspot.com/

Greta Koehl said...

One of the best SNGFs yet, and that's saying a lot. I had these goals in my head and you have made me put them in writing, which in itself is tremendous progress. Thanks!

Greta Koehl said...

Oops, once again I did not post the link:

http://gretabog.blogspot.com/2009/08/sngf-my-ugg.html