Tuesday, August 05, 2008

2008 Genea-Bloggers Games

As I am not known for my athletic ability, I expect that signing up for the Genea-Bloggers Games is going to take a lot of brain gymnastics with a side of organizational skills thrown in. The Genea-Bloggers is a group of genealogical and family history enthusiasts on the popular social-networking site Facebook.

Step One:
I have signed up to compete by RSVP-ing on the group games page. After doing so, I made sure I am "in-training" by running up and down the stairs in my house organizing my genealogy files as I have just been to 2 family reunions this past two weekends. At sixty, running up and down the stairs is a major event!

Step Two:
Publish a posting on your blog. (OK, you are reading this now, right?) by Friday, August 8th at 3PM PDT. Today is Tuesday, August 5, so I guess I will meet this deadline! I am supposed to list the categories in which I will be competing, so here goes:

Category 4: "Write, Write, Write"
I will go for four of the five posted tasks competing for the Diamond Medal. I will have to forgo the Platinum Medal because I have a book in progress, a possible teaching job on the line and a presentation to write so I will be unable to do the task marked "Sign up to host a future carnival". I am an over-achiever, yes, but I am not crazy.

Category 5: "Reach Out and Perform a Genealogical Acts of Kindness!"
I will go for five of the six (Did you know you listed 6 tasks?) I will skip requesting another genealogist to join Facebook because everyone I know who is a genealogist is already on-board as Facebook experienced a deluge of genealogy enthusiasts this month! (Wow, where have you guys been? I've been here since February 2007) Update: I emailed Carmen Johnson and she was very excited to join Facebook if there was going to be other genealogy enthusiasts here! Yippeeeeeeeeeee! Now I can blog about her and her contribution to our mutual ancestors!

I have decided that this will have to be enough for me at the moment and I am skipping the categories that are obviously my strengths: Organizing and Backing-Up Data. As an educational technologist, I have been a geek for twenty years and have an unfair advantage in these categories. My data is backed up to flash drive, I own a portable hard drive just for my genealogy data, I already post my photos to Flickr, and I have backups on CD in a fire-proof box. I have a tree at Ancestry where I am storing my data (plus census records, etc.) and I have a full surname-notebook system and a paper-printout filing plan in place.

Mill's Evidence book is sitting next to the family Bible and I strive to read and comply by it. I am a member of APG, after all!

Step Three:
Start Competing on Saturday, August 9 at 12N PDT. OK so, I have started early. Hey, I'm sixty and slower than I used to be. Besides one of my genealogical kindness projects is for a lady who was born in 1922. Do you really think I should wait?

Midge

2008 Genea-Bloggers Games

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