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"Where Am I?" .... in the process of BCG Certification

If you're currently working toward your Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) portfolio as I am, or on any large project, you probably realize how quickly time escapes us!

I started "on the clock" on May 30th, and already, the first quarter nears its end! Time to make a plan...

So far, I seem to have gotten stuck on working with an estate file which proved the relationship of a group of ancestors. Working with land divisions is interesting...but there's so much more to accomplish!
No time to let details and tangents hold me back!

I think I need to go back to the requirements page (there are seven parts to a completed portfolio), and make an outline with some established goals for completion.

First things first...



While there is an excellent section of FAQs provided by BCG for the research portfolio requirement, and also a very helpful Six-Month Cycle Timeline provided on the website, I have decided that for myself, I need to work on the kinship determination project throughout the year so I don't get caught short of my expectations by the time the alarm goes off on May 30, 2014!

  • The first thing I did was to print out a descendants report for the four generations I plan on using for my kinship determination narrative (Part 7 of the BCG Requirements). That narrowed it down to four pages of names.
  • I then broke down the list into six equal parts, keeping family groups intact, so that I now have sections to be completed by September, October, November, December, January and February. While the website offers a twelve-month timeline, I've decided to work on the six-month cycle in order to allow more time for additional research, edits and re-writes. 
  • I made a list of the types of records I needed to round out the narrative for each person, and then searched online repository indexes for those names, keeping a list of the repository name, type of record, and person connected to the record.
  • Then I printed out a copy of my genealogy software's (Legacy 7.5) Descendants Narrative for Isaac Carter, limiting the generations to four, including his. One nice thing about this is that there are blanks drawn for each missing piece of information which will alert me to find answers to these questions. 
I am fully aware that these reports do not fulfill the requirement for BCG Certification, but they do help me to remain focused on my research boundaries for this project. 

Ready...set...go...

Now that I have a framework to reign me in, I hope to stay on target for the remaining nine months...enough time to birth a portfolio!





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