We are just about to head into the holiday season for this year. Your family life got a little bit busier when summer ended, and the new school year began in September. Starting in November, things get even busier! There will be family gatherings to attend, which you will either be hosting, or will be required to bring some food to. There will be gifts to be shopped for, and, in some cases, to be shipped off to friends and family. Has the time you spent on genealogy research dropped dramatically? Have you already been neglecting your genealogy? It’s about to get a whole lot more difficult to find some “extra time” to work on it.
It can be very easy to neglect doing your genealogy work, even if genealogy is your absolute favorite thing to do. There is always going to be laundry that needs to be done, dinners that need to be cooked, and errands that need to be run. There is always going to be situations where someone suddenly needs a lot more of your time than you accounted for. Perhaps you are caring for a sick family member. Maybe your child came home from school and announced that you have been volunteered to send six dozen cookies to her school party, which is tomorrow. Sometimes you may have to take your work home with you. And, there will be some days when you just don’t feel like working on your genealogy.
If you have been neglecting working on your genealogy, and fear that you won’t be able to continue it until sometime next year, it is time to get some help. Seek out other genealogists who can assist you. If you belong to a genealogy group, ask another member to help you find information about the elusive relative you can’t seem to find much information about. Perhaps someone in the group needs a break from their own genealogy work, and will welcome the challenge you bring to them.
You also could try hiring a professional genealogist. If you happen to have more money than time, let a professional do the work for you! Find out exactly what their service will cost, and be very specific about what you want the professional to find. No one said you had to do all of your genealogy work entirely by yourself, after all! This is a great way to take care of your extra tasks and responsibilities, without having to let your genealogy research get completely neglected.
Is there someone in your family that enjoys spending time on the internet, searching for random things? Assign that person a little bit of your genealogy research. This family member appears to have a lot of free time, and may enjoy having a goal to spend it on. Or, choose the most computer savvy person in your family, and see what she can help you find online about your family. When your life slows down a little bit, you can return to doing your own genealogy research once again.
Image by Florian Boyd on Flickr