Monday, August 15, 2016

The Plan's Beginnings

It's been roughly a month since my last blog post. I thought I'd update the status of my family history writing project over the last 30 days.

  1. With loads of help from my genealogy friends on Facebook, I made the decision to write about my Mizera family line first. That was a big hurdle/decision and one I'm feeling good to have made. 
  2. I've made a sincere effort to learn my way around Scrivener. I started with the "Quick Start" video tutorials first and once I felt comfortable with those basics I made my way through the rest of the video tutorials. I have not "memorized" everything about the program but have familiarized myself with much of it. I think that is satisfactory for now. 
  3. I started assembling some online information about my grandmother's ancestral village in Scrivener. I'm still a little unsure about how to use (where to put) info that I'm collecting. But, I'm moving ahead and will adjust the way I'm doing things as necessary. 
  4. I met with a friend who gave me the name of a researcher who lives in the area of my Mizera ancestral village (Wojnicz). I contacted that individual by email and he indicated that he would need to write a letter to the local parish to obtain the records I was interested in. We are waiting to hear back from that parish to see if they will allow him access to their records. The records I'm hoping to get are: the marriage records for 3 of my grandmother's siblings, their death records as well, and the birth records of any/all of their children. 
  5. I was able to structure my genealogy time one week out of the last four. It was a bit more difficult than I thought it would be to plan the time and stick to the plan. 
My goals for the next month are:
  1. Continue to collect information about Wojnicz and assemble it in Scrivener. I'll need to practice importing digital photos, text, and web pages. 
  2. Start combing through my hard drives for the vital records and digital photos of my Mizera family. Finding them will be a chore since I haven't consolidated my data files over the years... some are here, some are there, etc. 
  3. Start looking for printed photos, handwritten letters, and email regarding my Mizera family. I know that stuff is around here somewhere...
  4. Continue to familiarize myself with Scrivener. Watching a few more videos wouldn't hurt.
  5. Hopefully move forward with getting those vital records from the parish in Wojnicz. 
  6. Structure my time and make genealogy a priority.
And now I'm off to find those Slownik Geograficzny entries I translated a while back... where the heck did I put those anyway??? Wish me luck!