12WRC

I decided to accept Janet Hovorka’s 12 Week Research Challenge and thought I’d write about my progress each week. The idea of the challenge is to help genealogists and family historians learn and grow. Each week a new challenge is delivered via email. There are tasks for researchers at all levels—beginner, intermediate, and advanced. At the end of the challenge, you could even win a prize—but really, the prize is growth 🙂

Week 1 is all about assessing your genealogical maturity. I actually did this back in 2010 when I was just a few years in to my genealogical journey. I’ve work hard over the last ten years to grow, and it turns out I have! Let’s have a look.

Sources – I have certainly grown in this area, having gone from a 3 to a 5, which is “Insightfully pursues research at multiple, targeted repositories, making use of a plethora of record types.”

Citations – Ten years ago I rated myself at a 4; now I’m at a 5, which is “Overcomes limitations of genealogical software to create well-organized, industry-standard reference notes and source lists.”

Information – Another area of growth, I’ve gone from 3.5 (I felt I was in between) to 5, which is “Additionally, utilizes implicit information in a source. Finds information in cases like illegitimacy that stump most researchers.”

Evidence – This is a little tricky since the choices for the original assessment differ from the one we were directed to use at the FamilySearch Wiki. Initially, I was a 5, which was “Additionally, recognizes and captures indirect, conflicting evidence.” But now, with the changes, I’d have to say 4, which is “Additionally, resolves conflicting evidence by accounting for it, explaining it, and reconciling the differences. Captures and utilizes indirect and negative evidence.” They’re similar, but now a rating of 5 is “Additionally, publishes, teaches, and inspires others to fully utilize evidence of all types.”

Conclusions – Back in 2010, I was a 3, now I’d say 4, which is “Forms conclusions ‘based on well-reasoned and thoroughly documented evidence gleaned from sound research.’” (Quoted portion comes from Evidence Explained.)

There was an additional category for Conclusion Trees, but it is not part of the model we were directed to use. My overall score in 2010 (taking out the missing category for comparison purposes) was 18.5. Now I’m up to 23! It may not seem like a big difference, but reassessing my genealogical maturity has helped me see that I have indeed grown. It also helps me see where I fall a little short, which brings me to the other part of this week’s challenge—setting a SMART goal to improve my skills.

In the Conclusions category, a 5 is “Additionally, publishes clear and convincing conclusions. Teaches and inspires others.” So, to work toward that, I decided I need to study more published materials that provide “clear and convincing conclusions” so I can better learn how to present (and then publish) my own conclusions. My goal is to read and evaluate five published case studies by the end of 2020.