Thankful Thursday ~ My Winter Slump Is Over

February and March were busy months ~ so busy in fact that while I focused on some of my goals (research, organization, and education) I completely let others slide (writing and blogging). The funny thing is I commented on several genealogy posts on Google+ and attended several Google+ Hangouts so I was "interacting" a great deal, just not on my blog. I need to work on that.

Something that was really heartening to see was that several other bloggers were also going through a "winter slump" (it is always nice to know you are not alone). After giving it some thought I decided that I really overloaded on RootsTech in February, what with the livestreamed and recorded lectures, the blogs, the bloggers' comments, the interviews, and all the other "goodness" that was RootsTech 2012. Don't get me wrong ~ it was great and I learned so much, but it was a busy couple of months for webinars, conferences, and social media.

I am addicted to Google+ but wish that there was smoother incorporation of Google+ with Blogger. That is tops on my wish list and I hope that the Google engineers are reading this as this is a wish of many of us using both Google+ and Blogger. What do I like so much about Google+?  The Stream is great ~ all my interests are in one place and I can easily read posts and leave my comments in Google+. Others who read the posts and the comments add to the conversation and it makes for a great real-time conversation. I do hope that the Google engineers can figure out a way to have the comments published both at Google+ and also on at the individual Blog (I find that oftentimes it is a real pain to sign in and jump through the various hoops in comment moderation ~ so much so that I have pretty much given up posting at the Blogs).

I am also a big fan of Google+ Hangouts and I am using them with both a Virtual Legacy Family Tree Users Group and the Guild of One Name Studies. It is terrific to interact with people "face to face," get answers to your questions, and brainstorm together. The ability to share screens and see how other people do things (especially how they customize and use Legacy) is a real treat.

Along with everyone else (or maybe it just seemed that way) I spent a good part of March busily preparing for the release of the 1940 US Census by cleaning up my database and using the Census Search Tool that Legacy introduced in March (many thanks to the Legacy programmers for making my genealogy life easier). I was up bright and early on April 2 and watched the livestream of opening day for the Census. I thought the speeches were great and it was fun to be a part of history ~ the first digital release of the US Census. Thank you to all the employees of the US Census Bureau, the National Archives, Archives, FamilySearch, and FindMyPast, as well as all the member Societies and Associations who banded together to provide such a terrific experience (the census images, the indexing program and the 1940 Census website) and a real community service to/for the rest of us. Kudos to Ancestry for putting together a great website to showcase the 1940s by way of photographs and stories, as well as putting the census images online.

I am indexing through the Community Indexing Project ~ it is interesting and really easy to do. The Family Search Indexing Program is well thought out and a breeze to use.  I encourage everyone to get on board and give back to the genealogy community by indexing.  Next week ~ back on track with Motivation Monday!