GENEALOGY Do-Over, Weeks 11 & 12: Breathing time!

Look how close we are to finishing this group of topics!  I've been finding the last few weeks significantly easier than the first few weeks:
Week 11 - Reviewing Social Media Options; Building a Research Network
Week 12 - Sharing Research; Reviewing Research Travel Options

Here's my brief summary of my SOCIAL MEDIA options, with my own information.  As for who I follow - too many to list.  It's my particular research and educational network - sometimes depending on the particular area and problem.  So I've somewhat skipped over RESEARCH NETWORK here:

• I have two BLOGS:  Twigs and Trees, my personal genealogy blog, and Terwilliger Souvenir Album, which is a page-by-page inventory of my great-grandfather's Album.
• I TWEET using TweetDeck:  @celialewis  - on many eclectic topics, #genealogy, #writing, and various science and STEM topics. Whatever catches my eye and fills my buckets. 
• I am on FACEBOOK as Celia Lewis - but it is focused on family, friends, cousins, other romance writers and writing colleagues, plus some few genealogists I follow. Not strictly genealogy, because I have several other passions (I know, you're cringing aren't you?!).  I also copy my two genealogy blog posts on my Facebook page, to intrigue my cousins and kids!  Looking for someone to pick up the passion, eventually.
• I'm on GOOGLE PLUS [G+]  as +CeliaLewis, and we'll see what changes may be taking place there later this year. This is a major source of morning wonders for me, as well as a quick check-through on people I love to follow - genealogy, nature, photographs [of birds, insects, various animals], sciences, geology, astronomy, and more.
• I have a Genealogy Board on PINTEREST  as CeliaWinky - along with other Boards of my special interests. 'Winky' by the way, is my Grandma Winky name.
• I follow about a dozen YOUTUBE genealogists or companies for genealogy education purposes. Of course, I also follow quite different people for jazz/folk/old-time blues music, spirituality support, and more.
• I follow half a dozen or so of genealogists' blogs and posts, including BLOG-TALK RADIO and other PODCASTS, particularly those with their unique educational flavour to their genealogy and history.  

You get the picture.  Social Media and I are pretty friendly, even though I'm not on "everything" social, nor am I an expert.  I do feel comfortable digging around on different social media sites, for what I'm learning or struggling with.

In RESEARCH SHARING - I am tagging all my photos correctly, finally.  There are a few which I am going to be marking as my own personal photographs, therefore they are copyright (with explanations).  I have already requested permission to share several photos of my son-in-law's great-grandparents and received permission along with some additional information and a friendly connection.  I've been doing this for some time now, so I am only being more detailed, more thorough, and going back through my older items.

I keep my own family tree on my computer [thoroughly backed up in 3 ways], in either of 3 or 4 different programs. I use Legacy as my primary program, but move the tree back and forth to the others for learning purposes as well as to access different reports, etc.  At least once a year, I teach genealogy for beginners so I try to understand the programs likely used by students.

I have my Ancestry online family tree set as private but searchable by others;  my family & cousins have access (but not edit rights). I have had a number of requests to view my tree, almost all of which I have approved. In a couple of cases, the requester had the wrong person for their family (which I could see very easily when I looked at their family tree online), so I gave him/her some hints on where to be looking instead.

I post on several Message Boards regularly, updating the post yearly or so, in hopes of finding cousins.

Re the online tree: events, places, names - if I am unsure of them, I usually mark as NOT PROVEN, or unsourced. That way, anyone seeing them will be aware of the caution and not simply copy. Truthfully, most people requesting to see my tree are looking for 1600s to late 1700s ancestors, and the research for that era can be challenging. I've received some wonderful old maps and sketches from 'relatives' of my direct ancestors, by asking very nicely if they could let me know how I could find that oh-so-wonderful land map of the late 1600, for example. I received direct links to not only the land map, but half a dozen more great documents directly related to the common ancestor we shared. I love sharing.

As for RESEARCH TRAVEL - that is a big dream of mine.  However, the reality of my situation since retirement in 2008 is that being retired with no pension or assets and therefore with a miniscule budget for "extras" means I tend to spend money on monthly costs I can budget: monthly Ancestry, monthly Evernote, monthly FindMyPast, monthly LegacyWebinars, etc. You get the picture. Saving money per month for anything larger than say, $50 or so, is out of the question.  With no financial buffer, I get wiped out any month there's an unusual expense or a yearly expense, like the genealogy society memberships (4), or medications needed after my recent eye surgery, or the veterinarian cost/meds for my bird the other week. Life. It is what it is.

I do have a dream list of what I'd like to do for genealogy research travel, of course.  Why not dream?  Who knows?  One day "someone" may make me a gift of enough money to travel, maybe $400-$800 should more than do one or two, I think:
1.  5-8 days at Salt Lake City Library - maybe every year or two! September?  March?
2.  Southern California Jamboree - held in June each year
3.  RootsTech - February 2016
4.  A ramble over various places of my Northeastern USA 1600-1700 ancestors: PA, ME, NJ, NY, and CT. April or May would be good months, eh?
5.  A trip across the pond to Barrow In Furness Lancashire, then to the Black Midlands to Dudley/Netherton Worcestershire, with a stop in Islay for a wonderful single-malt scotch tour [big dream], and then to Northern Ireland to County Tyrone as well as Belfast.
6.  Well, if I'm going across the pond, obviously I should hit London once more (I was here for 13 days back in the 1990s), and visit the Society of Genealogists, and the British Library, as well as...

In the meantime, my Do-Over Legacy tree is coming along, slowly and carefully.  And I'm constantly reviewing how to make the original Master Source, then make the correct Citations - I'd done it completely wrong in my old tree.  Basic misunderstanding of how to do what!

I'm using my son-in-law's family tree as a perfect way to START RIGHT!  My documents for my his family tree are correctly labeled and filed, ditto for the photographs and maps. I'm actively using the Research Logs I've made, including the document log  - Excel is my friend indeed. Oh, and isn't it fun to colour-code the tabs? Very cool!

All in all, I'm very pleased I started this Do-Over process. My desk is tidier than ever, as a bonus. Through the year, I'm going to be working my way through my old tree and all my documents, maps, books, and other miscellaneous items for my genealogy. Tune in next year, to see what I've accomplished! A huge Thank You to Thomas MacEntee for suggesting this incredible journey.

You can contact me via calewis at telus dot net or via Comments below, and hopefully Google is letting me reply to comments. There was a problem when I updated, and I'm still trying to figure out which defaults got changed!! So if I don't reply to your Comment, know that I'm totally thrilled that you came to read my post and commented! You make my day.