SLCC Genealogy 1000 Course: Preserving the Past and Present Project Approval

For my Midterm Project for the Preserving the Past and Present Module I was required to submit a proposal for a six-hour(at least) project that will be something I really want to do for my family. 
Here is what I wrote for the proposal. Ihave identified three things that I could do for this six-hour project that I am going to do any way. The unit Preserving the Past and Present has been very stimulating!

1. Interview my 92-year-old mother. However, she has been in the hospital the last week , so I need to take interviewing her more slowly than I could do for an assignment for this class. But I have already approached her and started an outline of what we need to do to help her write her personal history.
2. Organize my photographs. I purchased a guide book for Picasa from Geeks on Tour and am going to learn how to use the program. The author Chris Guld has lots of online videos about using Picasa that I want to study.
3. This is the one that I want to do first for this class. I want to work on my family history blog. I created the blog http://jhdfamilyhistory.blogspot.com in 2008. Ironically I started it (and then backed off of it) when I was called to be ward family history consultant. I thought it would be a good place to share family history information and instruction with ward members. But when I advertised it, I was instructed by the bishopric that we were to have no blogs or websites other than official church websites. (In the meantime members of the church have been encouraged to establish an online presence in multiple ways. That is the ironic part.)

When I attended RootsTech 2014 I went to the session about blogs by James Tanner and was motivated to start writing more. I have been following his blog Genealogy Star and am amazed by how prolific a writer he is. I plan on watching the UGA video of his presentation on the same subject for more ideas on blogging. (I am a UGA member, so I have access to the archives.) He stressed that if you insist on perfection, you will not be writing very much. So I need to lower my standards and write more frequently. I am also impressed with ReNee Zamora’s blog and how she writes about her genealogy class assignments. I am thinking that if I do the same, my research processes will be well-documented for those researchers in my family who come after me.

 I also like the idea of a blog just because I can save the instructional things I learn from classes, from books, from webinars and from Internet sources in a place where I can find them. So, this is my proposal. Spend at least six hours writing posts for http://jhdfamilyhistory.blogspot.com. Use my notes from RootsTech 2014 and share what I learned, include links to online resources for many of these classes. I think I can write at least 12 posts on the subject of RootsTech. Then I want to start writing about class assignments, like Renee. I am probably not going to write about past assignments. I will just start where I am.

My Instructor approved my project proposal. One of her comments was "It will become kind of a "notebook" of sorts for you to keep track of genealogy resources. Make sure you add the box that makes it searchable." What a good suggestion! I am thinking of lots of improvements that I can make to this blog. I am excited to get started on this project.