Where do we start and where does it end. (It doesn't) :)

Question

There is so much to do here. Do you organize your participation or do you just jump in willy-nilly? I have a GEDCOM that I have been working on. Sometimes I go through the potential matches and sometimes I just pick a name and try to figure out how it connects. It is comprised mostly of people from the book about descendants of Zadock Bliss, written in 1951. Yesterday, I picked George Munson who was married to a Bliss. So checked out his children. Only got as far as first son, who had 4 wives. Last one was 18 and he married her when he was a 50 year old doctor, in 1883. Makes me want to imagine his life.

Answer 1

I just jump.  For awhile now, I've been trying to make sure all the profiles on my watchlist (go to My WikiTree, drop down menu near the bottom is Watchlist) have bios, location categories, and sources.  But, then I get side-tracked and start working on someone and then try to get them connected with parents, etc.  I find sorting my watchlist by date (the little category titles) can show me the profiles I've last edited or the ones that haven't been edited in a very long time.  Also, checking my contributions helps to get me back where I was when real life consumed me for a moment or two. 

Answer 2

Generally, I consider my direct ancestors the highest priority, and work backwards in time.  Of course, that work often gets derailed by inquiries from distant relatives and/or DNA matches, playing around on G2G, and many other things.

One way to keep the big picture of what you've done in mind is to use the "My Ancestors Research Statistics" chart.

Answer 3

I have around maybe a half a dozen personal projects. I tend to work on a cluster of 10 people or so within a given project then do the same with a different project and so on.

I just finished writing a batch of profiles for Harbeson Ancestry - my paternal grandmother's ancestry. It's now as connected to the tree as possible. Next I should probably enter my maternal line. They're all 19th century German immigrants and their descendants. They won't connect to the greater tree unless someone with more skill than me has done extensive work in Germany and Prussia! Or I could poke away at one of the projects not directly related to my ancestry - one I call Boyle 1865, which traces the descendants of a formerly enslaved family that after emancipation continued to live with their former slaveholder, my ancestor. Or work on the Quakers of the Sandcreek monthly meeting in Indiana. The last two are new research, the others polishing and writing up research I've already done.

So many possibilities! I just work on one for a few days, then switch to whatever intrigues me most at that moment.

Answer 4

You are so right. It doesn't end. I've been at this 50+ years and there were several genealogists before me who worked on it and my parents (at the same time as me). Wikitree does add to my searching since I no longer just work on my own ancestors. But I'm having fun.

Answer 5

I've passed my first year jumping everywhere. Now I try to focus on a project : take one of my ancestors in 1700 and try to complete his descendancy. It will take me years, I know, but along the lines I've found a few cousins. Note that is far from the bulk of Wikitree activity (no American, no Aristo, no notable).

https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Lauzet-Descendants-5