Slekt og Slikt

To keep up the Olympic spirit, and to have something fun to do while DH (DearHubby) stares constantly at the television hoping for medals of any color, I decided to go for the Geneabloggers 2010 Winter games.
Geneabloggers on Facebook
Geneabloggers.com

The competition categories:

1. Go back and cite your sources (this will be a good thing, still lots of sourcing and citing to do
2. Back up your Data! (this is sort of already done)
3. Organize your Research (oh well, my chaos is also unorganized… good good) 
4. Expand your Knowledge (yes I am working on it)
5. Write write write!
6. Reach out and perform Genealogical acts of Kindness! (this one is easy!)

I think category 4 Expand your Knowledge looks fun, might go for platinum on that one!

• Task A: Use Google Maps to map out an ancestral location.  Create a map that you can then embed into a blog post.  To learn more see Google Maps and Carnival Posts at Bootcamp for GeneaBloggers.

• Task B: Create a timeline related to one of your lines of research, a specific ancestor or location.  Get creative using a free application such as TimeToast. Post your timeline on your blog.

• Task C: Create a memorial page for an ancestor using either Footnote’s Create A Page feature or their Facebook application I Remember.

• Task D: Visit tutorial and learning pages of popular websites such as Ancestry.com or FamilySearch’s excellent articles repository.

• Task E: Create a surname visualization using Wordle, Word It Out or a similar application.  Post the graphic to your blog. (done)

Have a look at my results in the summer games!

Genea Blogger Summer Games Closing Ceremony was held yesterday, and since I did not really work to much on my two categories, I really did not expect any medals! But! I got 2 – and some medals! Wow!

Cite Sources: Platinum

The most important medal for my genealogy was the Platinum in Site Your Sources! Even though I have more work to do there, I am no on the go, and I have decided that all my sources and persons will be organized and cited by the end of 2008!

I did the most known error when I startet my genealogy – I thought I would remember ! And that is soooo wrong! So – lots of work had to be done again, but now I know, and my friends say I am a source-freak.

Genealogical Acts of Kindness: Diamond

This medal was the easiest to get. But then again, one of the tasks made me join two societies I have said I should join for years! Wisconsin Historical Society, and the Romerikslaget.

I did not invite anyone to join Facebook though, but I joined two bloggers network, and commented on quite a few other geneabloggers blogs! And, the most important thing for me to join this games – I got to know a lot of other genealogists through their blogs!

Maybe I will attend the Winter Games in 2010 together with the winter Olympics in Vancouver? I am looking forward to them alread – maybe we have some National games in Norway in between?

Since 3 of my great grandparents came from Sweden to Norway in the beginning of 1900s, I like to work with swedish sources also. Sweden is a bit different from Norway, but not to bad. The language is pretty close, (sounds like different accents only – like New Zealand and USA maybe?), and the most important sources in both Norway and Sweden are the churchrecords, censuses and probate records.

The biggest difference between norwegian and swedish genealogy resources, is that in Norway they are available for free, both transcribed censuses and scanned churchrecords. In Sweden they are transcribed and/or scanned also, but there you have to pay. I know that nothing in this world is free, so I pay where I have to pay, and enjoy the free resources where I find them.

In Norway we have a great genealogy society DIS-Norge (almost 9000 members out of 4.5 million norwegians, not to bad!) – and I am the president of the county-«branch» in Oslo/Akershus where I live (almost 2000 members). We have a query/message board for both members and non-members, where I do a lot of lookups. And, today I have worked on a query about people from Skee parish in Gøteborg/Bohuslän county in Sweden, where my great grand parents came from. They were not related to my family though, but fun to work with afterall! Here you can see the query (only in norwegian – but…)

Read about swedish genealogy

Find your Swedish Roots

More sources has been put into my Legacy database today – and some genealogy kindness has been done.

1. Go Back and Cite Your Sources!

Sources corrected/identified/cited: 26
Total since games started: 17 + 26 = 43
Wow I am already on the Gold medal in my category! With this speed I will get to platinium! Well, actually – my database needs more than that, but I am on my way!

5. Reach Out & Perform Genealogical Acts of Kindness!

B. Join another genea-blogger’s blog network on Facebook Blog Networks.

I have joined 3 Genea-Bloggers networks actually, Creative Gene (Jasia Smasha) , Genealogy Roots Blog (Joe Beine) and of course Vidars Slektsblog

A. Comment on a new (to you) genea-blog.

I am working my way through many of the blogs I have found lately, and a comment is made on Genealogy Roots Blog This is not «just another blog» but it also includes some great information on new death-indexes, important also for the norwegian researchers looking for relatives in USA!

Today I first made a list of all the persons I have in my database without any sources at all! Lots of living persons of course, that I have just put in because I know their names and birthdates, but also lots of the first persons I collected from family history books and local history books when I started my genealogy database in 1997.

Category 1, Cite Sources:
Sources corrected/identified/cited: 17
Persons attatched to sources: 37 (plus 31 living relatives)

Category 5, Genealogy Kindness:

A – comment on a new (to me) Genea Blog –
Done (I have one goal, to read all the participants blogs to get to know where their heritage is and maybe get to know them better! Already commented on one)

D. Assist another researcher with a research request
This is the easiest one in the whole Games, as I do this all the time 🙂 Today I posted a reply on Ancestry.com messageboard, to give some help on Oslo-research. Norway is a great country for genealogists, as we have lots of records online for free!
This is the thread I put my answer to today, and I am sure I will find more to put there.

F. Join a genealogical, historical, heritage or lineage society.
For years I have thought about joining Wisconsin Historical Society, as my great grandfathers sister settled there, and I have also many other familymembers that went to Wisconsin. Today I e-mailed them my membership form with payment details!

I started my own work on my task today, organizing my project on citing my sources! Lots of work to do!

The opening ceremony was held yesterday (while I was in a wedding of course) – Norway, USA and Canada are represented. This is fun, and a great way to both get to know new people online, and to get some boring work done!

To see the participants – take a look here: Opening Ceremony