January 1 is the most popular time for fresh starts. Let’s not discuss how many of them falter later, shall we? Thomas MacEntee has updated his immensely popular 13-week Genealogy Do-Over to make it a year-long effort, complete with a workbook to keep participants on track month to month. I tried a couple of times last year to follow his excellent strategies for my own research, but got sidetracked by work, gardening, and a reluctance to actually put aside over 10 years of admittedly haphazard findings.
What finally got me focused was the Progen Study group I took part in for several months starting in August. The rigorous exercises examining source attributes and crafting citations sent me back to my research with determination to re-examine each source and data point critically and thoroughly. It’s going to take a while: of my 414 current sources, I have checked and fixed 28. In this process, I throw out a few, but sometimes add new ones.
While working on this since September, I realized that a go-over, not a do-over, would suit me best this year. Thomas allows for, and even encourages, that approach in his topics for each section of the program, and in his workbook. So, not exactly a fresh start for me, but a continuation of an organized go-over.
