Accentuate the Positive 2022 – Genealogical Year in Review

Every year, my genimate Jill Ball produces a list of questions, encourages us to review what we have achieved or learnt and ‘accentuate the positive’. It’s that time of year again.

I really recommend this as a process for everyone working on their family history. It’s so easy for a year to go by and you really wonder if you’re making progress sometimes. Sitting down and thinking about some of these questions as they apply to your own year’s work may help you realise that you are getting there, bit by bit. It can also help with setting your family history goals for the next year!

So how did I accentuate the positive in 2022?

1. I was happy to go back to… libraries and archives after a Covid absence, though not as much as I’d like to yet!

2. In 2022 I was particularly proud of writing… an article for the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly journal highlighting the benefits of seeking family stories rather than ‘just the facts Ma’am’.

3. A new software package or web application I embraced was… GoldieMay, though I still have my training wheels on. I haven’t yet upgraded to the top tier for the full experience. I’m hoping for a discount to be available at RootsTech 2023! This is going to save me HOURS!

4.  My sledgehammer did great work on this brick wall… finding the maiden name of the wife of Edward Eginton gave me a whole new family line to investigate. The Duddlestons . As recently as the past week I have had further connections to this family making contact. This has led to further DNA confirmation that this is the correct line. Perhaps this year I will finally find the father of Sarah Bytheway, 2023’s target person!

5. A new genealogy/history book that sparked my interest was… “Bound for Australia: A Guide to the Records of Transported Convicts and Early Settlers” by David T. Hawkings (The History Press, 2012). Okay, so it’s not new, but it’s a new acquisition. It very much focuses on the sources to be found in The National Archives in Kew, some of them quite unexpected and obscure! Great for anyone with convict ancestors.

6. A geneasurprise I received was…. the journal article I wrote that I mentioned above becoming the cover story for that issue! I can’t accentuate the positive any more than by saying ‘Omg, omg, omg’!

7.  In 2022 I finally met… a client face-to-face again! I’d gotten so used to exclusively using Zoom, email and phone to communicate over the previous couple of years.

8.  Locating… where the Townleys came from gave me great joy… it also allowed me to confirm a line for a family that is commonly misrepresented in other researchers’ trees.

9.  I am pleased the Covid situation caused me to change… some of my expectations on what I could achieve. Being forced to stay home for a while was probably helpful for my self-care! And it forced to me think of alternative ways to get things done.

10. I progressed my DNA research by… revisiting GenomeMate Pro, updating it to the newer Genealogical Data Analysis Tool and importing a whole lot of new relatives from across the testing platforms. I’d been intending to do that for a while but have had a VERY full year. I thought I needed more time to get my head around the changes than I actually did. If you previously used GMP, don’t hesitate to move across to GDAT, it’s not as steep a learning curve as expected!

11.  An informative journal or newspaper article I found was… a series of reports (over 1000 found so far!) on an arrest and two murder trials printed over the course of several months in many different newspapers. Bit by bit, they dropped details of the accused person’s life into the timeline I was building and gave lots of clues as to where to look next for him.

12. I was pleased I could contribute to… the Genealogical Society of Victoria by becoming co-convenor of a new Discussion Circle for the Midlands area of the UK, which is where a huge number of my ancestors (and myself!) originate.

13. I got a thrill from opening someone’s eyes to the joy of genealogy… when they initially decided they only wanted their family researched back to their immigration to Australia, then realised there was so much more exciting stuff to be found in the countries of origin!

14. The best value I got for my genealogy dollars was… the Association of Professional Genealogists Professional Management Conference. Great content, and I more than covered the cost of attending by winning one of the door prizes, worth twice as much as the conference attendance fee! It made it extra worthwhile to stay up all night 3 nights running to attend the live sessions.

15.  I enjoyed my first post-Covid face-to-face event because… I’m changing this one to I WILL enjoy my first Covid face-to-face event as I’ve yet to attend one and am looking forward so much to meeting up with some of my genimates again! Accentuating the positive is easy with this one. And the virtual versions of conferences attended were all well worth it.

16. A fabulous event I attended was… RootsTech2022. I still have a ton of sessions to catch up with, there is more included each year than anyone could possibly hope to watch. I’m so glad they leave most sessions up indefinitely, as RootsTech 2023 will be here before we know it!

17. I’m happy I splashed out and purchased… a new laptop. The old one was groaning under the strain, and the new one flies along in comparison! It was a good excuse to deal with some reorganisation of my filing system too!

 18. I got the most joy from … working with some lovely new clients, with some return customers sticking around to find out more about their families. I love solving people’s mysteries!

19. Another positive I would like to share is … YOU WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF STORIES TO FIND ABOUT YOUR FAMILY!!

What about you?

What did you enjoy about your genealogy research this year? Remember, ‘accentuate the positive’!