Many of you may have heard recently that former FGS Treasurer, FGS Director and ISGS board member Kim Kasprzyk passed away this week after a brief illness. I had the pleasure of working with Kim at both FGS and ISGS and I admired not only her commitment to both organizations through her volunteer work, but also her intense passion for genealogy.

Having now witnessed the passing of two different FGS board members in less than 18 months, naturally I begin to think not only of my own mortality, but also there’s a natural curiosity as to what that journey out of life must be like and what can be expected on the other side.

Do you think that place beyond life is different for genealogists than it is for most people? I think it is. Here’s what I believe I’ll find “over there.”

• There won’t be any genealogy research on my family lines.  Not one bit.  Because it will already be done.

• I’ll get to meet all my ancestors, I’ll learn about their lives, I’ll hear their stories, I’ll have all the time I need to become acquainted with them and enjoy their company.

• In an instant I’ll understand how that crazy puzzle I worked on for oh-so-many years fits together. And I’ll realize which parts of my research were accurate or inaccurate.

• I and my genea-buddies will haunt and harass legislators and others who continue to block access to records and data important to genealogists.

• Did I say no research? I mean none of my own research. I know I’ll be guiding my nieces and nephews and other descendants in their own journey to understand their roots.

• And not just guiding my own family. I intend to push along all my genealogy friends as well. There will be Random Acts of Genealogical Serendipity and I hope to be the cause of quite a few of them. Someone has to make sure that book falls off a library shelf as you walk by, right?

On a personal note, the ancestor I most want to see again is my great-grandmother who inspired me to get involved with genealogy. Perhaps I’ll be able to tug the sleeve of her favorite cotton dress, catch a whiff of her favorite perfume – Emeraude – and maybe even try to scrounge in her purse for a butterscotch candy like I did as a child. I’ll hold her close and tell her, “Thank you for what you did for me and how you changed my life.”

And mostly I’ll be at peace and so will all my genealogy friends already over there on the other side. No worries. No concerns. We’ll have at our disposal the biggest library you could ever imagine. We’ll have a big genealogy party without end. We’ll laugh and we may cry, but we’ll continue to be reunited by our driving passion.

Genealogy doesn’t end.  It just keeps getting better.

[So what is your vision of a genealogy afterlife? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.]

Photo: Into the light, digital image by Somebody_ via Flickr. Used via Creative Commons License 3.0.

© 2012, copyright Thomas MacEntee

[Editor's Note: this is the fifth and final post in a week-long series of posts at GeneaBloggers entitled Genea-Opportunities - 2012 Update.]

What I Discovered During The 2012 Update

Out of this week’s conversation which started here at this blog and carried over to Facebook, Twitter and other social media, here is what I’ve observed:

• When I first ran this series of posts in April 2011, I received some downright nasty emails.  I remember one in particular and actually it is one that I keep printed and posted on my office wall: the person said that I was “ruining genealogy” and that I was “the Rupert Murdoch of genealogy” with all my crazy talk and my new ideas.  However, 15 months later, there was quite a bit of engagement with others in the genealogy community and lots of great input. My belief is that people understand that my main goal is to advance the genealogy industry and one way of doing so is to not just analyze what is going on, but tap into the community and solicit their input.

• For each individual post, I made sure to post it in an email to the Transitional Genealogists Forum and the APG mailing lists.  I realize that many of the participants may not be active blog readers and I wanted to make sure they had an opportunity for input.

• I greatly appreciate all the other bloggers who posted replies to my posts and offered their own perspective.  Especially Michael Hait of Planting the Seeds, Caroline Pointer of BloggingGenealogy.com, and Randy Seaver of GeneaMusings who also provided their own series of posts.

• Based on the comments, posts and feedback, I’ve determined that the genealogy industry still is in a working mode on defining itself and its components.  Last year’s heated discussions have transpired and transformed into a more collaborative working of offering ideas and suggestions.  One I like in particular is Michael Hait’s suggestion that a person who focuses more on non-research work within the genealogy industry could be called a “genealogy professional” instead of a “professional genealogist.”

• Once again I’ve tried to be very transparent about what I do for a living in the genealogy industry and how I do it.  What was downright “scandalous” last year now is being treated as valuable information to be studied especially by those entering the genealogy industry. And as I’ve said, I don’t expect anyone else in the business to be as transparent – it is just something I am comfortable with.

• And finally, once again I couldn’t have done this without you the reader.  Please know that I greatly appreciate every comment, every email, and every bit of feedback. There are days when that is what keeps me going. You are the best.

Conclusion

Money makes the world go round and I’ve come to the conclusion that in order to keep genealogy attractive to the general public and especially to newcomers, the money-making side of the genealogy industry must continue to grow and expand.

That growth comes not just from new ideas and new products, but also by honest discussions among the genealogy community about:

• How we see ourselves as well as how we are perceived by the public as genealogists.

• How open we are to new ideas and to change, especially when it comes to technology and marketing.

• How to develop new products that do more than just “sparkle” and attract the “bright and shiny object” crowd to our field, only to see them exit out of that revolving door in short order.

• How to not just attract new consumers but how to set them on the path of sound genealogy research and full enjoyment of all that genealogy has to offer.

• How the genealogy industry will look in 5, 10, 15 years from now and beyond.

©2012, copyright Thomas MacEntee

[Editor's Note: this is the fourth in a week-long series of posts at GeneaBloggers entitled Genea-Opportunities - 2012 Update.]

Call me Crazy, but I am going to tell you how I spent my time over the past six months and how much I made in income.  Crazy? Probably, but please don’t waste your time telling me in the comments how stupid it is to make this public.  I’m not doing this to “show off” or to solicit similar information from colleagues in the genealogy field. I feel this is important so that the genealogy community gets an understanding of what it takes to try to make a living in the genealogy business.

And here are the details of what I have been doing for the period January 1 through June 30, 2012 in terms of working in the genealogy industry, while having the time of my life.

My OCD – Project Management

Some of you may know that I was a project manager in a previous life. My job was to manage major information technology projects for a global law firm which included moving an entire London office of 100 people in a weekend, or upgrading 2,000 copies of Windows over six months.

My main management tool used to be Microsoft Project as well as Sharepoint server.  Now I use Microsoft Excel and I track EVERYTHING and have done so since January of this year.  I wanted to see where my time went especially when it came to volunteer work.

Don’t believe me? Take a look (click to enlarge):

Click to embiggen

My system works by placing the most frequent tasks in the Common Projects tab, each day copying them over to the Pending tab and coloring them yellow.  Once completed, time and date info is entered, the projects are colored green and moved to the Completed tab.  My day starts by looking at what is pending (yellow) and what I did the day before (green).  Red or pink are priority items that are crucial or overdue.

I just couldn’t stay focused without this system.  Yes, it takes discipline and yes it can be time consuming.  I would say now it only takes me 30 minutes a day to write down projects and keep them updated.  So there, now you know one of my secrets!

The Numbers

Income producing activities:

• Articles (writing for magazines and online)
  42.5 hours

• Client (consulting work)
  192 hours

• Presentations
  325 hours

Total hours = 559.5; 21.5 hours per week

Administrative and overhead activities:

• Admin (running the business)
  69 hours

• Email (reading, responding and archiving emails)
  167 hours

• Invoicing (you can’t get paid unless you send a bill!)
  15.5 hours

• Marketing (gotta tell it so you can sell it)
  57.25 hours

• Travel (travel to and from locations for lectures)
  50 hours

Total hours = 358.75; 13.8 hours per week

Volunteer Work and What It’s Worth

I do too much volunteer work.  That is so tough for me to say, but after looking at the numbers below and having my family tell me I do too much volunteer work, I’ve come to this conclusion: I do too much volunteer work.

For the period January 1 – June 30, 2012:

Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS)

I sit on the FGS Board, I serve as National Co-Chair for the FGS 2012 Conference, I sit on the FGS Tech Committee, and I am currently transitioning FGS to a new website.

• 2012 Conference – 41.45 hours; $1,450.75
• Education – 10 hours; $350.00
• Marketing – 43.25 hours; $1,513.75
• Radio (including publicity) – 28.5 hours;  $997.50
• RPAC – 10 hours; $350.00
• Website – 51.25 hours; $1,793.75

Total: 184.85 hours valued at $6,455.75
Rate is approximately 7.1 hours per week of volunteer work for FGS

Genealogical Speakers Guild (GSG)

I serve on the Virtual Presentations sub-committee and I’ve produced several webinars for GSG this year.

Total: 10 hours valued at $350.00
Rate is approximately 25 minutes per week of volunteer work for GSG.

Illinois State Genealogical Society (ISGS)

I serve on the ISGS board, I am the ISGS webmaster and I assist with production of the monthly ISGS webinars.

• ISGS General – 17.5 hours; $612.50
• Education –  21.5 hours;  $752.50
• Publicity – 20 hours; $700.00
• Website – 71.25; $2,493.75

Total: 130.25 hours; $4,558.75
Rate is approximately 5 hours per week of volunteer work for ISGS.

Total volunteer time and value = 324.7 hours; valued at $11,364.50

And Then There’s GeneaBloggers

I’m never sure how to categorize my work at GeneaBloggers in terms of 10 posts a week, adding new blogs, tagging post for Daily Blog Prompts.  I consider it marketing really – it is a way to promote myself and also serve as an evangelist for blogging and genealogy.

GeneaBloggers – 353 hours, valued at $12,355.00.

Total Hours

The total numbers of hours I devoted to genealogy related income producing activities, business administrative activities and volunteer activities is 1,595.95 hours. Over a 26 week period this translates to 61.38 hours a week.

Income Breakdown and Expenses

Here is what I was able to bring in during the first half of 2012:

• Advertising –  $213.91
• Affiliate Sales –  $168.85
• Consulting – $4,220.25
• Publishing Royalties – $1,396.35
• Research – $150.00
• Speaking Fees – $5,355.00
• Web Admin – $907.35
• Writing Fees – $2,530.00

Total Income before Expenses = $14,941.71

Here are the expenses for the same period:

• Books – $120.00
• Computer – $695.71
• Domain Names – $46.74
• Electric – $76.00
• Gas – $100.00
• Internet – $240.00
• Magazines – $10.63
• Marketing – $354.53
• Membership – $59.98
• Mortgage + Condo Fee – $800.00
• Phone – $290.00
• Radio – $156.00
• Research Subscriptions – $204.65
• Software – $79.99
• Webinar Hosting – $594.00
• Website Hosting – $150.00

Net Results

A rough approximation is that for the first half of 2012, I earned $11,104.85. Of course, out of that I haven’t yet taken taxes etc.  An exact income amount won’t be available until I calculate my federal and state income taxes for 2012.

Taking into account 559.5 hours spent on just earning income (does not include administrative work or volunteer work), my hourly rate is $19.87 per hour.  If you add in the 358.75 hours of administrative time, the hourly rate drops to $12.10.

So What Does He Do?

Here is an idea of how I make the money listed above:

• Advertising –  this income is passive (in a way) and comes from website advertising as well as GeneaBloggers Radio advertising.

• Affiliate Sales –  this income is mainly passive and through the sale of the Flip-Pal® mobile scanner.

• Consulting – I work with various clients including some genealogy vendors and some individuals to improve their marketing reach, develop blog content, act as social media agent, or even coach them through a transition and provide information about the genealogy industry.

• Publishing Royalties – this includes book income and webinar CD sales.

• Research – this income is from client research for genealogy, something I don’t do very much of right now.

• Speaking Fees – my main income is from speaking in person as well as via webinar for genealogy conferences and societies.

• Web Admin – income derived from setting up and administering genealogy related blogs and websites for others.

• Writing Fees – income from articles published in genealogy magazines and online.

No It Isn’t Magic

No magic or smoke and mirrors involved here.  Some considerations to keep in mind so you understand how I make this work:

• There are in-kind benefits for some of the volunteer work. For example, I earn additional hotel room nights for conference publicity, etc.

• Contrary to what you might think, I don’t get comped subscriptions to vendors like Ancestry.com or Genealogybank.  I make it a point to pay for those services.

• I share living expenses with my partner (who also works at home). I could not do this if I lived on my own. But the expenses are split evenly and I’m expected to pay my fair share every month.

• Some of the income is passive such as publishing royalties. By this I mean there is an expense in terms of labor and hours spent initially, but I can earn income for many months from that published work or recorded CD.

• I don’t have health insurance because I can’t afford it ($700 a month to start). I don’t want to get on my soapbox right now on this issue because literally it will make me sick.  So I’m careful and I pray a lot.

• After living in some of the most expensive cities in the world, I can get creative when it comes to living expenses (such as not having a car). I live comfortably, but there are no extravagances.  And I do have to make lots of choices and opt not to do things or go places because of the cost.  And I am fine with that.

Conclusion

So what does all this mean?  Well you can draw your own conclusions from the data, but for me this means:

• You’ve probably already figured out through back-engineering the numbers that the hourly rate I charge is $35.00. That includes consulting work. Yes this needs to go up and it likely will in 2013.

• I need to learn how to say “No” when it comes to volunteer work and try to reduce those hours.  I expect a big drop off in volunteer hours once the FGS 2012 conference is over and once the new FGS website is finished.  Already I’ve turned down requests to be on committees and I don’t feel bad or selfish for doing this.  The plain fact is we need more volunteers in the genealogy societies and we need to stop dumping on the same people.  Also realize that there are many other volunteers for these societies who work just as many hours as I do, if not more.

• I expect to increase my income in the 2nd half of 2012 and also reduce the number of admin hours.  I need better and smarter ways of working especially when it comes to email and marketing.  I’ve stopped doing GeneaBloggers Radio because it was taking up too much time.

• I need to increase my royalty/passive income and I have plans to do this soon and it will be the main focus for me.

©2012, copyright Thomas MacEntee