I have been very inconsistent in blogging about my genealogy research, and have done nothing about writing my stories down and sharing them, so I have decided that 2017 will be the year I will do something about that! One way I will work towards this goal is to participate in a 52 Weeks challenge.
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is a challenge created by Amy Crowe Johnson in 2014 to motivate her to blog about her research. Her ‘rules’ were very simple — blog about a specific ancestor each week! It doesn’t have to be a research thesis; 3 or 4 sentences that summarize what you know about the person is good enough!
If you want more details, you can refer to Amy’s blog here, or visit the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks blog post on the Family Search site.
This is a 3 year old challenge and I’ve thought about participating in the past, but I’ve just never done it for various reasons…’it is the middle of the year’…’I don’t know where to start’…’I don’t have a blog’…..
well, you get the idea! But I am going to make a real effort to blog more this year. And the help me keep my focus, I am keeping my rules very flexible.
- Ideally, I will blog about an ancestor each week, BUT if I miss a week, I am NOT going to let it get me off track. I can catch up by doing 2 (or 3 or 4) posts in the following weeks.
- I will not worry about WHO to write about, but will write about whoever interests me that particular week. This may be a direct ancestor or it may be a distant cousin. It MAY even be a friend or a friend I come across in my research and find interesting!
- I will not ‘wait until I have time to do more research’. Telling what I know NOW is good enough, and if it motivates me to do more research, I will update the post when I have more to tell or do a second post!
One more minor detail is WHERE I plan to post. Because I have individual blogs for several of my family lines, if the person I blog about belongs to one of those lines, I will post on the blog for that line. If not, I will post here, with the option to move the post someday when I set up a blog for that line. And no matter where I post, I will post a small reminder on this blog to go look for the post. I will also keep and index post here, linking the blog posts by week. And I will tag the relevant posts with ’52 Weeks’.
Ok, I think I’m all set! How about you? Are you doing anything to record the history you’ve learned about your ancestors? If you are doing anything like the 52 week challenge, feel free to include a link to your blog in the comments and I’ll come read it.
Happy New Year and happy ancestor hunting!
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