It was another crazy year, but one focused on self-care. That said, I didn’t spend much time on my business this year (outside of contract work). Instead, I concentrated on my personal research, special projects, and creative outlets. While I didn’t meet all of my 2024 goals, let’s see what I did accomplish and what my plans are for 2025.

2024 Accomplishments

✅ I completed the Copyediting Certificate Program through Writer’s Digest. It was a great course, and I learned some new things while reinforcing my editing skills.

✅ I attended the SLIG 2024 Spring Virtual, Gothic Script and Fraktur Workshop with Warren Bittner and Methods and Strategies for Slavery Era Research at the Midwest African American Genealogy Institute.

❎ I did not finish writing my book. In fact, I don’t think I made any progress on it at all in 2024. I am not even sure this will carry over into goals for 2025. I am going in a different direction and not sure if I can do both projects at the same time.

🟩 I did continue working on my genealogy hub in Notion, but I am still not where I want to be with it. The idea is to have my hub mesh with my problem-solving framework, and I am still working through how this looks in Notion (but it’s getting there!). The challenge is that there have been so many great enhancements in Notion since I initially built my hub, meaning there is even more I can do (this is the nerd in me coming out!!).

🟩 I really wanted to finish Katherine Schober’s German for Genealogists course. I did, however, make progress. During SLIG in early 2024, I also went through lessons from both of Katherine’s courses (the other being Reading the Old German Handwriting), but I did this haphazardly so that I could focus on the lessons that were the same or similar across all three at the same time. Therefore, there are still a few lessons in each course I need to finish, which I WILL do in 2025.

❎ While I wanted to publish at least one short guide/booklet in 2024, it never made it to my priority list. Although it won’t go on my goal list, it is still an open project.

🟩 Although not on my goal list, I took a somewhat impromptu trip to Salt Lake City, where I spent a week researching and sightseeing. My research focus was on my Hessen ancestors, and after sorting out the filming situation (don’t ask!), I was able to find all sorts of church records for my family. I was even able to push back two generations in some cases, and there’s still more work ahead. It’s been great meeting these ancestors!

2025 Goals

There’s a bit of a theme for 2025, and that is getting caught up!

✳️ Learn German. I declared this as a New Year’s resolution and started immediately on the first of January. The goal is to complete at least one lesson per day. I am using Rosetta Stone and to date, I have already completed the first unit, which was 37 lessons (clearly I’ve done more than one a day…I’m really enjoying it). There are 19 remaining units, each with 39 lessons, so at the one-a-day pace, I should be able to get through nine units, if not one or two more.

✳️ Finish Katherine’s courses German for Genealogists and Reading the Old German Handwriting. As I said above, I’m just about done with both!

✳️ Starting in February, I plan to publish at least one instructional video to my YouTube channel each month.

✳️ Attend three institutes:

✳️ Attend the Ohio Genealogical Society conference. The OGS conference served as my NGS conference last year because OGS held its conference in person. I had a blast and plan to attend again (and again!). (Unfortunately, I will miss the NGS conference this year, as I have medical appointments at Cleveland Clinic that week.)

✳️ Teach at GRIP. I can’t wait to head to Pittsburgh and teach this year at GRIP. My course, Navigating the Genealogical Research Process: Advanced Strategies for Success, is hands-on, and both Taneya Koonce and Josh Taylor are joining me!

✳️ Take a trip to the US Army Engineers Museum at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. My grandfather served in WWII in a combat engineer battalion and I am hoping to learn more about what he did and his experience.

✳️ Run the following questions through my problem-solving framework to build solid research plans. I have working hypotheses for each but need to complete more research to prove or disprove them. I don’t have a lot of time, but I plan to work on one between February and the end of June, and the other from July until the end of the year. Working through both of these will also help me further develop my genealogy hub in Notion.

  • Who is the father of Sarah (Norton) Webster, born about 1780 probably in Vermont, and wife of Aaron Webster of Oakland County, Michigan, and Cayuga County, New York?
  • Who is the father of Polly Wheeler (Smith) Parks, born about 1781 probably in Connecticut, and wife of Robert Parks of Oakland County, Michigan, and Cayuga County, New York?

✳️ Spend two hours a week working on my passion project. In late 2023, I decided I wanted to research African Americans who served in the American Revolutionary War. The plan is to compile details and write short biographies for each person I identify. I set the stage in 2024, which included identifying appropriate and reliable sources, creating a process to make things easier and consistent, and developing a Notion database to track all my research. My goal is to identify, research, and write about those who served from Massachusetts and Connecticut by the end of 2025.

✳️ Read one genealogical/historical periodical each week. I have a stack a mile long going back at least four years. The goal is to shorten, if not eliminate, the stack!

✳️ Watch one webinar from my backlog each week. Doing so will cut the backlog in half!

✳️ Spend one hour each week adding digital items to my FOREVER account. Right now the focus is on photographs, which I would like to complete by the end of the year, if not sooner (at which point I will switch to genealogy records).

✳️ Determine whether or not to proceed with a new book idea. This is something I’ve been entertaining for about a month but not for the first time. I need to do some brainstorming and research before I make a decision, especially since it will take me in a slightly different direction. But, just noodling on it for a few weeks and talking to a few confidants, I think this might be something that will benefit the genealogy community in numerous ways. If I do decide to move forward, I plan to spend three hours a week working on it.

This looks like a lot, but I’ve structured my goals in ways that make them doable (in the past, I either overestimated the time needed or thought I could take on the world). I will also be tracking my progress differently, making me more accountable. Fingers crossed that there are a bunch of check marks this time next year.

So what about you? What goals did you accomplish in 2024, and what do you have planned for 2025? Drop me a comment and let me know!

© Julie Tarr. This article was first published at Julie’s Genealogy & History Hub; the appearance of this article elsewhere, without my permission, violates copyright.