October Objectives–September Recap

Happy October! One of my favorite months. I am combining my September recap with the October objectives because last month was not a very productive month as far as family history went. However, I am not disappointed at all because we have a lot going on. We have flag football, soccer, cheerleading, cub scouts, daisies, and the start of school; all of which kept us on the move and very busy. However, I still got a few posts in throughout the month and did get some research completed. All-in-all, it was not a bad month. So, on with September recap:

1. Get a copy of the church register that shows the baptism of William Van Capen.  (Did not get to this so this gets moved to October)
2. Write to the Massachusetts churches to see if they have a record of birth for Joseph Lucas. (Did not get to this so this gets moved to October)
3. Do some initial research into what military records may be available for WWI aviators (William Van Capen). (I actually did start this, in a way. I am hopefully going to be writing an essay on the battle of Blanc Mont during WWI so I have been digging through the National Archives site, among others to see what is out there. But, there is more to do so it is moved to October, also.)
4. Lay out an initial vacation/genealogy trip centered on Danzig. (Yeah! This was is done. I have a rough outline of the trip)
5. Store the records in my Lucas files correctly. (I have some old letters and documents laying in files and need to preserved these as best as possible). (Yeah, another one completed. However, as I was doing this, I found a few envelops of documents and photos from my wife’s side that we need to go through)
6. Solidify a solid backup plan for my genealogy data and all my photos. (I back up now but I’m not happy with my process). (I did a little of this but still not 100% on how I want my final plan of backup—online? home network?DVDs? I need to do a lot more research and finalize my end of year – this does link with my goal of my digital photo plan.)

Now on to the October objectives, which is just going to be what I did not complete last month with one more addition for this blog. We still have all the sports going on this month so will not overload and make objectives unattainable again.

1. Get a copy of the church register that shows the baptism of William Van Capen.
2. Write to the Massachusetts churches to see if they have a record of birth for Joseph Lucas.
3. Keep on the research into where I can find the military records of a WWI aviator.
4. Complete the blog post on my search for Joseph Lucas birth record and location.

A very doable list for a hectic schedule. What are your monthly objectives? Or do you have suggestions for mine? If you do then leave them in the comments for all to see.

Thanks for reading and keep diggin’ up that family.

Chris

Technorati Tags: Family History,Genealogy,Ancestry,Goals,objectives

September Objectives

Happy Labor Day all! It is already 5 September so about time to publish the objectives we want to meet this month in pursuit of the yearly goals I posted in my Goals and Objectives post. Here are September’s objectives.

1. Get a copy of the church register that shows the baptism of William Van Capen.
2. Write to the Massachusetts churches to see if they have a record of birth for Joseph Lucas.
3. Do some initial research into what military records may be available for WWI aviators (William Van Capen).
4. Lay out an initial vacation/genealogy trip centered on Danzig.
5. Store the records in my Lucas files correctly. (I have some old letters and documents laying in files and need to preserved these as best as possible).
6. Solidify a solid backup plan for my genealogy data and all my photos. (I back up now but I’m not happy with my process).

It seems like a lot (to me) but actually is pretty doable as long as I can stick to my plans and nothing major comes up this month.

Thanks for reading and keep diggin’ up that family.

Chris

Technorati Tags: Family History,Genealogy,Ancestry,Goals,Objectives

August Objective Recap

So, here it is September 3rd already, August really went by fast. But, even with a busy schedule which included the start of fall sports, our 2nd grader starting school, and a short vacation, we were able to accomplish most of the objectives we laid out back on August 1st. I gave an update to these in the middle of the month and you can read that here. Here is what we laid out and the results:

1. We will find and write to the local churches to see about a birth record for William Capen. Yeah! We can mark this complete because my wife completed this. We did not find a birth record (boo!) but we did find a record of his baptism in the church register. We will have to add getting a copy of this to our to-do objectives.
2. Relook at the past searches I did for Joseph Lucas’ birth record – see where I need to look next. I looked through my Lucas files and found some interesting things that I don’t remember seeing before. The big thing is that I think I’ve narrowed down his place of birth to Northbridge, Ma. I’ve also came up with a couple other leads to go on. I will save this whole story for a separate research story post. But, I can count this as complete. Yeah!
3. Plan the visit to William Capen’s grave and the WWI battlefields which are nearby (this satisfies my military history needs also). Ran into a little snafu here. We live in Germany and the grave and battlefields are in France. Doing a little investigating I discovered that France is sometimes a little ‘anal’ about passports. The whole family has our ‘official’ passports that got them over here but they all don’t have the tourist passport which France wants to see if asked for. So, we will get that process started next week and continue this objective. I’m glad we figured out the passport thing before we were ready to hit the road.
4. Danzig – do some initial probes as to what records are available for this area and the time period we need to look at. I pulled a complete brainfart on this one. I started to look at sources for Polish genealogy and I realized that many years ago when I started this family history endeavor I found out that my maternal great-grandmother spoke Polish (She is Joseph Lucas’ mother). Years ago I got two books to help my research along. They are ‘In Search of your European Roots’ by Angus Baxter and ‘Polish Roots’ by Rosemary A. Chorzempa. We looked through these and what a wealth of information I had sitting on my bookshelf, right under my nose. So, this is a complete also.

So, all-in-all, it wasn’t such a bad month for getting some research done and we got a long weekend on the Rhein River in to boot. I’m happy with it and we are now ready to move on to September objectives, which I will write up this weekend and post.

Thanks for reading and keep diggin’ up that family.

Chris

Photo by: Troy B. Thompson

Technorati Tags: Family History,Genealogy,Rhein River

August Objective Update!

August is now half over – where did the month go so fast? I need to provide an update on where we are with the objectives that we set out to complete this month.

First things first – this is the first month that we are trying this new approach to getting things done. Combining these objectives with everything else that needs to get done during the month can seem very overwhelming at times. However, I think we are doing pretty good. We have even used some of the tips/tricks that I talked about in my Genealogy Time Management – Focus post (I would hope that I’m using my own tips/tricks). The main thing that keeps us on track is that I block out time on my calendar to get certain things done. I have time blocked out for homework assignments, family time, and research. I have even added blog posts to my calendar this week because I was neglecting the posts. Enough of the blabbing and on to the update.

1. We will find and write to the local churches to see about a birth record for William Capen. Yeah! We can mark this complete because my wife completed this. We did not find a birth record (boo!) but we did find a record of his baptism in the church register. We will have to add getting a copy of this to our to-do objectives.
2. Relook at the past searches I did for Joseph Lucas’ birth record – see where I need to look next. Not doing so good here – haven’t started but the time is on my calendar for this coming week.
3. Plan the visit to William Capen’s grave and the WWI battlefields which are nearby (this satisfies my military history needs also). Not so good here either but now on my calendar for next week when I am off work for the week (yeah!)
4. Danzig – do some initial probes as to what records are available for this area and the time period we need to look at. Ditto as the previous two objectives

I am going to say that the wife did great because she got something done already. I have to get off my butt and do some of this stuff that I love to do so much. But, that is one of the reasons for this mid-month look at our objectives; keep us on track. I think this ‘look’ has done its job because the lacking objectives are now on my calendar. I just have to stick to the plan as much as possible.

Thanks for reading and keep diggin’ for that family.

Chris

Photo by Matt Carman

Technorati Tags: Family History,Genealogy,Time Management

August Objectives!

My last post, Goals and Objectives, I laid out the goals we (wife and I) have set out for the rest of this year. And I said that each month I would list the objectives we want to finish which lead us to the obtainment those goals. So, it is August 1st and our first monthly objectives.

1. We will find and write to the local churches to see about a birth record for William Capen.
2. Relook at the past searches I did for Joseph Lucas’ birth record – see where I need to look next.
3. Plan the visit to William Capen’s grave and the WWI battlefields which are nearby (this satisfies my military history needs also).
4. Danzig – do some initial probes as to what records are available for this area and the time period we need to look at.

So, not too hefty of a list to get done this month. For each new objectives list I will also update on the previous months objectives. Wish me luck!

Keep diggin’ for that family.

Chris

Goals and Objectives

I’ve seen a lot of blog authors posting their goals for the week, month, year. What a fantastic idea! So, I am going to steal the idea I got from some other bloggers and post the goals we have for our family history research. One of the main reasons for this blog is to have another forum to document the research we are doing and I believe goals 101 says to write them down. Plus, if they are written down here in my blog for the whole world to see then that may help keep me accountable towards those goals.

I am going to take a little different approach as I mentioned in my Genealogy Time Management-Focus post. I have several goals in mind but most are not easy fixes and will take several different steps to reach. So, I am going to post our goals for the rest of 2011 and then each month (starting in August) I will post the objectives we want to accomplish that gets us closer to that goal.

Goals for the rest of 2011 are as follows and in no particular order:

1. Locate birth record for William Van Capen
2. Locate any military records for William Van Capen
3. Visit William Van Capen’s gravesite and memorial to his unit, the 3rd Aviation Instructor Center near Issuodun, France
4. Uncover specific locations/information of my wife’s line in Danzig, Poland and start planning a trip there for next year
5. Locate birth record for Joseph Lucas

Those seem to be some reasonable goals for the rest of this year. I am sure we will amend them as the year progresses but for now we can use these to maintain focus on our research.  Now I have to get to work on our objectives for August which is only a couple days away Yikes!

I’m curious how others set their goals and maintain accountability to those goals – if you have ideas and suggestions or want to share how you do it please leave a comment.

Hope you enjoy our journey and please help us stay accountable to our goals, objectives, and more importantly, our ancestors/descendants for whom we do this for.

Keep diggin’ for that family, Chris

Photo by: Angie Torres