Question of the Week: Do you set weekly genealogical goals?

Question

Do you set weekly goals for your genealogical research? 

Please tell us with an answer below. You can also answer on Facebook or use the question image to share your answer on social media.

Answer 1

No Way!  There are just too many of those pesky rabbit holes that keep showing up!  I get going in one area, then something else comes along that is interesting.  I start to research that, then something else comes along.  It is just a never ending cycle.

I do have a list (in my head) of all these projects that I would LOVE to complete, but in genealogy they are never really completed, are they?

Comments

Rabbit holes and I have a love/hate relationship.  I find so many interesting things while on the trip.  It usually ends up being yet another project I want to work on.  Or I find a really good source for information.  

But on the other hand, I get sidetracked from what I was working on. :(

Answer 2

Not so much a weekly goal as a daily goal. I'm trying not to miss the minimum for club 100. This month I am already ahead of that schedule. Mostly, because I went hunting for information on Dr. William Porter Verity. He was the town Dr. where my dad grew up.

Some of the stories I heard as a child seemed a bit far fetched, but they turned out to  be true. He was a noted Chicago physician, he did invent a type of suspension splint, and he left all of that and a wife and daughter behind. He moved to southwest Colorado in search of dryer air for his lung problem.

Of course genealogy is one of those things,where you can't just turn over one rock. So his family got some work too.

After everything I just wrote, maybe I do have a weekly goal. Go out and look.

Answer 3

Yes!  But Weekly Goals start with daily goals!  

Daily: Clean up random profiles with no profile managers, and a few with profile managers, especially if I see they have not made contributions recently. (I do send them a private message to let them know what I am doing! I try to prime the pump to get them active again!

Daily: Check the forum, add what I can!

Weekly: Participate in the Weekend Chat...my absolute favorite place! 

Monthly:  Make sure I have passed the 1000 contributions, and that is no problem because of the Daily Goals!  Already passed 1,200 for this month!

Answer 4

No I don't

Comments

No. I have had enough goals throughout the first 77 years of my life. Now I take each day as it comes and do what comes up on Wikitree one way or another, work on whichever of my various project most appeals and/or for which I have come across infmtion and sources. So many aspects of what I do for Cemeteries, historic places, NZ no tables, trees for people who make requests, my own relatives and ancestors are interrelated, interesting, informative and enjoyable to pursue. I would not like to be restricted by specific set goals! Live now!

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I Love you attitude on life goals. I would Love to feel and be as confident as you are!  Keep it Up and have a great day My goals are each day to do a little of profile clean up my own mistakes. and learn to remember where t5o thank people who are helping me.

Answer 5

I try to source at least one unsourced profile a day and if I miss a day ( or a week) will catch up. Usually I do more than one a day but my goal was one a day .

Answer 6

Not exactly weekly, but I do set myself goals.

The main target is to make 100 contributions a month, which I have missed several times recently.

My secondary is to find a memorial which interests me and research the family until it connects to the main tree. Currently that is the Luce family of Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England, which has taken me to the Crimean War and the Indian Navy and is now heading to South Africa and Ceylon/Sri Lanka is on the horizon.

Does this make me an unofficial cemeterist? It certainly can include some interesting lives.

Answer 7

Weekly goal: How many rabbit holes can I get down and through successfully? LOL 

Because of that, it is often difficult to set goals. However, today's goal is to complete adding three African-American cemeteries to the last three counties in Mississippi that aren't categorized yet. 

I can do that. 

Comments

Rabbit holes are the best part of Wikitree. 

Answer 8

No, I don’t set goals. I don’t work on my own family very much so instead I work wherever I see a need.

Answer 9

My first gut reaction was, "No, I don't". But after reading some of the answers, I realized that I do have weekly / regular goals on WT after all!

1. Answer at least one of the weekly topics on G2G - in the first half of 2023, that was 52 ancestors, soon substituted with the connection finder's EPOW question, and every now and then, I look at the Question of the Week and answer that.

2. Give thank-yous to fellow WTers who contributed to names that I follow (i.e. they show up in my feed anyway - and I check that (almost) every day).

3. Contribute to "Remember the children" every month - and since I started the Ostermann ONS, I guess that is now added to the monthly goal list as well :)

Thanks for asking - and three cheers to our goals!!!

Answer 10

My goals are pretty simple. Every month I try to:

-add a few connections by working on branches of my family

-fix up profiles on my watchlist

-find sources for unsourced profiles

-find connections for unconnected profiles

Answer 11

I don't set goals.  Part of the fun for me is spontaneity of not knowing what I will do in any week.

Answer 12

No, I don't.  

Some days, I don't get anything done, and some days, I only visit the forum.  I learn a lot from reading both current and old topics.

Some days, I look at one of my profiles, and I go off on a tangent of hunting down info.  Then, it's on to other members of that family, while I'm in the database or whatever.

Answer 13

Can I answer this question? Yes, I set weekly goals for my genealogy research but they usually don't get done. I was RAWKed back in June 2023 and I still haven't had time to look at all the profiles that were added to my branches. So every week I set this as a goal and fail. Why do I fail? Because there are so many challenges happening on WikiTree. There are projects that have their own challenges so I feel I need to help with those plus the other weekly/monthly challenges that WikiTree has. Sometimes I feel like there is so much to do on my list of goals for the week that I don't get anything done.

Comments

I've heard it said that it's not only procrastination that can hinder progress, but also praecrastination! ;-)

Answer 14

It starts off with a set of overall goals, things that I would like to get done, but don't have a set time frame, mainly because I can't guarantee the timing of things. Things that fall into this category are more like Research Questions. Examples of this are breaking down specific family brick walls. I have no idea when these will be complete, and can't force the timing. But I can work on these Research Questions throughout the year to see if I can get closer to any answer.

I have a set of yearly goals too. Things that I know can be completed. These are typically larger projects. I review these at the end of the year, usually when the WikiTree post here on G2G asks about your goals for the new year.  Examples of this are creating Free Space Pages for my projects such as a Family Reunion for a particular year, or a Family Bible that I have, or for a genealogy manuscript.
 

I have a list for "ongoing work". These are items that don't necessarily have an ending, or any end date. These things are "sustaining" goals. Examples of this are keeping my Suggestion list cleaned up. Once I got it cleaned up (a big goal), it needs to stay that way. Sometimes this translated into weekly work (clean up the Suggestion list once a week).

I think one of the biggest challenges is to translate the large number of "ongoing work" items into smaller chunks that, in itself, can be smaller goals that I can work on and feel a sense of completion. These smaller goals are then easier to think about in terms of weekly progress, or weekly work. For example, I now have a large set of family photos that I need to upload. It feels pretty endless. But if I can break that up into uploading the photos about just one person, I find that it limits the amount of photos to go through. I can break that down into scanning the photos, uploading the photos, placing the photos throughout the biography with labels.


I have goals in all sorts of areas: Research Questions, Writing goals, Project goals, One Name Study goals, DNA goals, Photo goals, Cleanup goals, Brickwall goals, Ongoing work (Increase CC7, fill in collateral lines, sourcing), and more.

An interesting idea I learned recently, is that with so many different types of goals, if I get tired or bored of working on one goal, then I can "procrastinate" by working on a different goal. When I get tired of that one, I can go back to the first goal, or onto another type of goal. This turns into slowly chipping away at all of the goals that I have. With enough patience, I can see that I've gotten far on all of the goals, throughout the year, or even over the years.


So what I do, from week to week, or day to day, may change a bit here or there, but it's the overall set of goals that I'm always trying to work on.

Answer 15

Not really, Its day to day to see what's on my plate to speak of. I check the Feb calendar to see what's happening that day or  week . Check out what's happening on my many projects I'm working on. Clean up my families bio and sources. Then go on with my many other cousins who I  have put in while doing connect a thon and Sat Sprint.   I have a written list.

Answer 16

NO but I probably should/ Lately I have been trying to get the question of the week done. and I am trying to participate mire with the group chats.

Answer 17

No, this is a hobby, not a job.

There are things I do regularly, like check in on G2G. If I get a merge request, I try to act on that quickly. But otherwise it's just as the mood and time available takes me.

Lately I started a one-place study of where I grew up, and that's been taking all my time. But there have also been times where I didn't make any contributions on WikiTree for a couple months, and that's okay too. At least in one case that was because I was transcribing records on National Archives (USA) website. Or I was busy with a home remodel. Life is just as important, and things ebb and flow.

Answer 18

I don't set time-bound goals per se. I do try to have a list of names to add to my tree for the next Connect-a-thon on this platform.

My goals are to constantly comb through my tree to make it as accurate and sourced as possible. I know there are lots of mistakes and I tackle them as I find them.

Answer 19

Yes, I have weekly goals that are the result of multiple daily goals. Often some of these goals are met by the end of the week, but do not prevent me from falling down rabbit holes. 

Comments

Don't be sad or upset about rabbit holes! Not only can they be fun, but you may find some interesting Alice or other person down there. ;-) Cheers!

Answer 20

Yes I do, I try to at least add one new profile a day.  Sometimes I can get carried away and add two or more.

I still have many of my own family to add, but find myself getting excited with connections made and get lost down that rabbit hole. If I come across a profile that hasn’t been worked on for a while and has a very scant biography, I sometimes do an Auto bio to align all the sources and add any new information I may have and make it look more presentable.