Information is everything. You can never have enough. Keeping current keeps you in the game. T. Boone Pickens, “Boom & Bust, Success Magazine (Nov 2008): 62-67.
Actually the whole November issue of Success focuses on converting your often passive approach to knowledge into a thirst for information because you need that power to meet challenges arising from enormous changes taking place in your life.
This is nowhere more evident than in genealogy. Technology, at every level, is in motion. What is current and understandable today will be obsolete and incomprehensive tomorrow. The new machines and more complicated programs that drive them are incompatible with what you use today. The discs you store your ancestry on today, tomorrows machines and programs cannot read.
Change is power–
Your genealogy brain needs to see and experience new technology to create vision and perspective.
A different environment–refresh your body and soul to receive new stimuli and recognize new patterns.
A power snooze–reflect on your most difficult genealogy problem. Then sleep on it, even if for just 30 minutes–your sub-conscious and conscious knowledge can combine in new ways–giving you a wonderful genealogy gift! New insight and, as it configures, new data.
A re-examination of your pedigree–a new view of what you have created. Your eyes will see relationships between the data you collect and the names you search for: what you looked for and what you missed. What strategy worked and what didn’t. What sources you now need to examine that you have not yet looked at.
Just because you have learned to do something well, don’t assume that you can continue as you did before. Genealogists are tech-savvy researchers. You need a new vision, however.
What is coming down the road? How will it change what you do best? And how can you prepare for the changes you see? Genealogy is an exciting activity to pursue.
Genealogy is one of the most addicting pursuits today–because it never stands still. You cannot live in yesterday. Your hard-to-find ancestors cannot be found using only yesterday’s resources. You have already looked at them–and if they didn’t yield the answers today, they won’t do it tomorrow either.
“…just get in there and do it…” is the advice the original Cosmo Girl, Helen Gurley Brown gives at age 86. Plunge in and do it.
When you come to the Family History Expo at the Dixie Center in St. George Utah, Feb. 27-28 2009, you will see me use a Power Point for the very first time! And all though I am frightened to death–I am going to do it without flinching. No way do you want to miss this “great performance!” so be sure to register early– http://www.myancestors found.com
Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle http://www.arleneeakle.com