Time Out - Family Tree Burnout

It is November!!
Five months since I last posted a blog!! I am not sure where the time has gone, but today I received a gentle shove that has given me the motivation to get back to writing about my family history.

I wonder if other bloggers have experienced the need for a little time out, whether it is due to life commitments or just the need to sit back and reflect a little.

In May I headed off to England to explore some of our family tree roots in Lancashire, Cambridge and Northumberland. After linking up with fellow researchers I spend a month visiting old family haunts, graveyards, churches, libraries, farmhouses and pubs. We wandered through narrow cobbled streets with old census records, tramped through fields with turn-of-the century maps, ate picnic lunches while sitting amongst family gravestones, had tea and cake with long lost cousins and sipped on a pint or two in an old family pub.

I gathered and collected hundreds of pictures on my camera and Ipad, bought numerous books on local history and was such a frequent visitor to the Colne Library, that the locals were asking me how to use the computers and if I had a key to the toilet.

Following my month of research, I headed off to visit family and friends in Europe with my husband and all my research was packed into two large postage boxes and set off by Surface Mail, back to Australia. On my return home I eagerly awaited the arrival of my “Boxes”. They finally arrived about 4 weeks ago. However, the motivation to get back into family research mode didn't arrive with it. I think I was suffering a little from research/travel burn out.

I would be interested to hear from other family historians/bloggers if they have had the same experience and how they motivated themselves to get back into it.

That off my chest, lets get back to writing.