2013 Reflections

Well I started the year on a reasonable high and am going to end it in a reflective and low key fashion.

The biggest change was in relation to the day job. Over recent years I struggled with the profit before people mentality within my chosen profession. I wasted a lot of energy and time arguing within a structure that was completely out of my control and remit to influence such change. A fellow colleague advised me many times to pick my battles more carefully and not to waste energy on the unchangeable. Whilst I heard his message, I didn't listen to him. More fool me. That was the catalyst for my change. The events that unfolded over the tale end of 2010 into 2011 lead to planning change in 2012 and then a completely different focus for 2013.

I still practice in my chosen profession. I need to for my professional development and registration, but I no longer have the passion for it that I once did; nor do I have the ambition. The corporate world, full of unrealistic pressures and budgets effectively left a shell of an individual as I walked away from a reasonably successful career. It was either walk or my sanity. The answer was effectively a no-brainer.

The dawning of 2013 produced The Book of Me, which has been successful and more so that I ever thought possible, both within the real and virtual world and groups. I am afraid to say that I once shared a project with someone who I considered a genuine colleague and friend who then took my idea and ran with their own project and published before my due date. I will never fall into that trap again. I lost not only a good friend and colleague but a great deal of time and effort on the project. So having said that I am observing from a distance several individuals who rather think my hard work on the Book of Me is theirs for the taking. It is not and I will name and shame those that overstep the mark.

The Book of Me continues to be a source of interest and I am at the point where my calendar for running physical groups is becoming very full and I have in the last few weeks accepted a booking for 2015.

The Anglers Rest blog has had a small facelift - I am a great creature of habit, I like the overall structure and feel of the blog, but am very irritated that in order to get around blogger not allowing comments from some I have had to opt for moderation and accept anonymous comments.

I spent several months earlier in the year moving my material from the web space allocated from my ISP to another provider. The Anglers Rest website is now in it's new home and I still have some material to load to the site. More recently I have structured and organised websites for several individual and specific projects - my one place studies and one of my one name studies. I also moved to publishing a quarterly newsletter for the Orlando ONS with the view that once written it is archived on the Orlando ONS website as well as the Guild of One Name Studies library. It is of course indexed by Google and available to other Orlando researchers.

My personal genealogy has been a bit slow this year, mainly driven by a poor filing system and time constraints. I spent about 5 months working with a selection of other genealogists forming the Society for One-Place Studies, which formed officially on 1st September 2013 and not before time! A society such as this one has been needed for a long time.

Global Genealogy

Having floated this idea briefly following a Gene Meme from +Jill Ball last August I was contacted by someone who stated that they have a business with the same name and that I "might like to reconsider the name". So I have an alternative name, nothing outstanding, but it does what I want it to do. Interesting that of all those who stepped forward to participate no one mentioned the company and they didn't step forward until just before Christmas. Perhaps they need to review their marketing plan as I had never heard of them but they do exist. A post will be published tomorrow about the new name and the blog address.

Keeping Mum!

As I said, I will be ending the year on a low as my Mum is in hospital and has been since 10th December. Thank you for the messages sent to me via this blog, Facebook and email. Mum is quite poorly and will be in hospital for at least another few weeks.

Coming up

I am still writing a regular column, Across the Pond for the In-Depth Genealogist digital magazine, it is hard to believe that it is a year since I wrote my first column and I still contribute regularly to the In-Depth Genealogist blog.

I am planning a regular feature on this blog linking in with the themed prompt hosted by Geneabloggers - Society Saturday. Here I plan to share details of some Societies that I am involved with, or have been involved with or others that cross my path. Most will be genealogical or historical but there maybe a few others too!

The book based on the Book of Me will be published a little later this year, I had planned for earlier, but given how I am ending the year I have delayed the publication date.

A few months ago I signed a contract with a publisher for a genealogical book which will be published early in 2015. So, I am rather busy researching and writing for that and looking forward to 2015.

All in all, I think 2013 has been a reasonable year. I am looking forward to 2014, with the all the promise it has.

Finally, thank you to all those who read this blog and comment or send me emails. They are appreciated and I do try to answer comments on the blog - keeping it interactive. I am a little behind with commenting at the moment and hopefully normal service will be resumed soon!

Happy New Year to you all and I hope that 2014 is everything you hope it will be.