Geneabloggers Winter Games!

Okay, in the midst of everything else I'm up to my eyeballs in, I've decided to compete in Thomas MacEntee's Geneabloggers Winter Games , scheduled to coincide with the Winter Olympics in Vancouver (provided they can find some snow!) over the course of the next two weeks.

I have designed my flag, which you see there on the right. The flag shows the American flag on top, with the flag of the United Kingdom and a smaller flag of Switzerland, which means that I am an American with mainly British ancestry, and a smattering of Swiss ancestry on my mother's side.

There are six categories of competition, and I will be competing to one extent or another in all six. I am not by any stretch of insanity going to try to do all the tasks under each category -- I have books to read and 18th and 19th century Spanish documents to transcribe and journal articles to copy and read and my classes and two days a week with the five-year-old grandson! But I'm going to try to do some of the tasks in each category, as a way of advancing some of my own personal genealogy work which has gone neglected with all the other stuff I get involved in!

The categories are:

Go Back and Cite Your Sources!
I have recently transitioned from The Master Genealogist
to Family Tree Maker 2010, and need to be sure that all
my sources transferred intact, as well, and surely there
are other documents I need to make citations for.

Back Up Your Data!
I won a copy of HandyBackup in a Geneabloggers Data
Backup Day contest, and I will be using that to back up
all my data, not just genealogy, onto the portable hard
drive my husband bought me.

Organize Your Research
I have a drawerful of items that need to be cataloged,
sourced, and placed into binders. I also have some more
photos to put into my heritage scrapbook that I have
been working on. Time to get some of that done, and
these tasks will make a good study break.

Expand Your Knowledge
I'm always in favor of that!

Write, write, write!
That's what I do for a living, so I will be doing some of
it for the Games.

Reach Out & Perform Genealogical Acts of Kindness
I'll do what I can in this department with the time
available.

So let the games begin!