What I'm Doing - When I'll Be Finished

The objective of my family history and genealogy project is really twofold: (1) to formally document my family genealogy, and (b) to share that information. Without the second objective, it’s pretty much pointless to do the required research.


In order to document my family history, I need to research and document names and relationships; collect supporting documents like vital records (birth, marriage, death), newspaper articles, photos, census reports, military records – you get the general idea. Pretty much any kind of document supporting the existence of a person and his or her relationship to everyone else. And then there’s the review of history and culture to understand more about the documents and migration.

Here’s the high-level time line – of course there are a myriad of lower level tasks not shown here… (My Information Technology (IT) roots are showing! GATES are decision points to decide whether or not to continue.)

The “Initial Research” is actually based on, and a continuation of, all my research going back to the 1980’s. And the genealogy books – there will be 5 in all (Introduction; father’s father’s family; father’s mother’s family; mother’s father’s family; mother’s mother’s family).

I’m pleased to report that I’ve completed 1 – 10, and I'm on track.  And I have passed GATE 3. Well, kind of. Alas, I have run into a common problem. I want to do just a little more research, find just one more person. That’s scope creep, and that’s another post.