Month: August 2012

I was catching up in Google Reader earlier today and I noticed that Randy Seaver is having the SNGF Genealympics. It all sounds like a lot of fun to me, so I thought I might see how much of it I can fit in. I’ve had a little bit of a break from my Family File Cleanup  recently (notice I have a category now! I just have to go back and fill it. haha.), so I thought this would be a fun way to motivate myself again! Much like the rest of my blogging, I don’t intend to be super serious about this fun project. I think it’s just an awesome motivator to link in with my current Olympic spirit!

My basic goal is to “compete” in as many of the events that Randy posts and the events that were posted during the 2008 GeneaBlogger Group Games.

Today I’m going to try a few of the events:

1. Go Back and Cite Your Sources!

Create proper citations of sources for as many events possible using eitherEvidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspaceby Elizabeth Shown Mills or How to Cite Sources by John Wiley.

Qualifications for “Go Back and Cite Your Sources!”:
10 Citations – Bronze Medal
20 Citations – Silver Medal
30 Citations – Gold Medal
40 Citations – Diamond Medal
50 Citations – Platinum Medal

This one works out great because this is actually hand in hand with my ongoing Family File Cleanup Project. However, I wasn’t counting until the other day. I’ve had my fill for the last few days and I’m ready to count up my tally. Lucky for me, I synced my tree with my Ancestry.com member tree right before reading about the Genealympics, so a simple sync will tell me how many citations I added or fixed.

So far I’ve done 26, so that leaves me at a Silver Medal so far. We’ll see if I do more a little later. I don’t want to decided until I’ve done a few more events!

Result: SILVER!

2. Pick any one of your 16 great-great-grandparents, or one of your spouse’s 16 great-great-grandparents.  

How many descendants of that person do you have in your family tree records or database?  (Hint, a Descendants Report in your genealogy software should easily provide this number).

Medal Awards:
*   Bronze:  over 50 descendants
*  Silver:  over 100 descendants
*  Gold: over 150 descendants
*  Diamond:  over 200 descendants
*  Platinum:  over 250 descendants

This was a no brainer for me. After what seemed like a really tense few minutes where my computer took longer then a women’s gymnastics floor exercise judge, my computer tabulated the results. George and his wife Mollie Jane Webb have exactly 251 descendants in my file. Which really makes me amazed! It does make me wish I would get on the ball with filling in some of those gaps on that side of the tree. I’m curious about how many there actually are compared to how many I’ve documented.

Result: PLATINUM!

3. The Source Citation Vault:  What is your ratio of source citations to persons in your genealogy software or online tree database?  Tell us:

*  How many persons are in your database?  1,595
*  How many source citations are in your database? 2,090
*  Determine your source citation to persons ratio by dividing source citations by persons (e.g., 2,000 source citations divided by 3,000 persons gives a ratio of 0.667.)

Medal Awards:
*   Bronze:  Ratio of 0.333 or more
*  Silver:  Ratio of 0.667 or more
*  Gold: Ratio of 1.000 or more
*  Diamond:  Ratio of 1.333 or more
*  Platinum:  Ratio of 1.667 or more

Result: With a ratio of 1.310 I get GOLD!

That’s all I’ve got for today but boy was that fun!