google-site-verification: google65e716d80989ba07.html Tuesday's Tip - Taking Stock | The Armchair Genealogist

Tuesday's Tip - Taking Stock


As the kids return to school, the leaves turn crimson and a cool breeze fills our homes on this beautiful September morning, there is no better opportunity than now, to take stock of our surroundings. At this time of change, the fall is a perfect opportunity to examine and adjust our sails.  

 Like January, when the year is new, the fall feels like an ideal occasion to start fresh. The breeze is bright and clean, sweeping away the hot and sticky summer. The autumn rains wash away all memory of those warm summer months and our mind turns to preparing for a new season, a change. That mental preparation for this new period sets us up ideally to access our yearly goals. Of course, I’m talking about your family history goals but feel free to evaluate all of your life’s goals at this junction in time.

Take a moment this week to assess what you have accomplished so far this year in your family history research, your writing and blogging.  Did you set some goals early this year? Are you on track to achieving them, or have you barely looked at them? Are their opportunities to advance your research, and do you have a plan for the rest of the year.  

It’s time to take stock of your research, make a plan and adjust the map based on your work thus far. Research plans are wonderful tools but work best when we utilize them to their full potential.  As we learn new information, we need to calculate and amend our plan for that recent knowledge.

Evaluating, adjusting and changing are life’s greatest opportunities for growth. If you apply that philosophy to your life and equally in your family history research, you’ll constantly be moving forward.


Take a few minutes this week, take stock, evaluate your research and adjust your sails as we navigate our way through these last few months of 2013.