Here we are at the end of 2020. It feels like it’s lasted a decade! Time to reflect on the year and complete Geniaus‘s ‘Accentuate the Positive’ Geneameme again. It’s a bit of a tougher task to complete this year in comparison to last year. We’ve all been challenged in many ways by the year that was. I’m still half-expecting to do a Bobby Ewing-style wake-up to find that it was all a dream. I hope you and yours have made it through 2020 relatively unscathed, if mightily inconvenienced. Here are my thoughts on my genealogical year…
Accentuate the Positive!
1. An elusive ancestor I found was: Hanora Vaughan, my great-great-grandmother. This is the single greatest highlight of my year, as her origins were so difficult to find for several decades. You can read about her arduous journey and what it took to piece it together here.
2. A great newspaper article I found was: The several I found detailing the unfortunate death of my great-uncle Alfred Mario Barnett, struck by a train as a teenager. I told this tale just a few weeks ago when his ‘rare-in-Edwardian-England’ middle name led me to find his story.
3. A geneajourney I planned but didn’t take was: Regular trips into Melbourne’s CBD to visit the State Library and Genealogical Society of Victoria‘s library to further my research. Lockdown meant they were each 15km further away from home than I was allowed to venture…and they were closed. They will be sick of the sight of me in 2021 (I hope!), there’s so much I need to do there. Thank goodness for partial access from home (remembering to ‘accentuate the positive’!).
4. I located an important record: in the home of a third cousin, 12 000 miles away. Without wanting to spoil the Vaughan story, the family bible was a critical though indirect factor. It was also one I did not know still existed. Moral of the story – ask even your distant family what they have!
5. A newly found family member shared: hmmm, this one is wishful thinking. I located a previously unknown half first cousin recently. He is sure to have photos of our shared grandfather who I never knew. I have written to him in the hope that he will share one with me. Goodness, I hope he does!
6. A geneasurprise I received was: having a word I coined (‘UnProvid‘) as a bit of whimsical wordplay for a blog added to the Geneadictionary!
7. My 2020 social media post that I was particularly proud of was: the one where I identified my Edward Girling, railway porter in Rugby as Edward Horatio Girling, boozy snakebite victim at London Zoo. This has since been verified via DNA too! I love a good silly family story, and my family provide so many…
8. I made a new genimate who: has inspired me to keep on writing outside of this blog, thanks Robbie!
9. A new piece of technology or skill I mastered was: Evernote. I’ve been kind of using it in a basic way since 2012. But this year I’ve spent some time learning how to wring out every drop of functionality to assist with my genealogy research. I’ve also taken on Trello to organise the to-do lists I live and die by, and I’m working my way through learning Scrivener to facilitate my writing.
10. I joined: several additional family history societies, genealogy organisations, Facebook groups and specialist subscription databases. Some of these I will definitely continue on with. Some I can just say I’ve fully tried out (but let’s just accentuate the positive!). One of my favourites leads me to the next question…
11. A genealogy education session or event from which I learnt something new was: Legacy Family Tree Webinars. They lured me in with lots of exposure to free webinars during the first part of lockdown. I’m a lifelong learner so I found it a great stress relief to just binge on webinars. I’ve now taken out a subscription and really enjoy dipping into learning more about specific niche topics, and also seeing case studies (I love a good story!)
12. A blog post that taught me something new was: I’m going to be a bit vague on this one, basically because I subscribe to a lot of really fantastic blogs. The best of them regularly have some new snippet of wisdom to offer. Even when there’s nothing exactly new to me, there’s often a new perspective offered which is just as valuable. For new information, the blogs that discuss new tools, such as those to help us with our DNA analysis are especially useful. Rather than name a single blog, I will recommend subscribing to Jonny Perl’s DNA Painter monthly newsletter – he provides a great summary of the best of the recent DNA blogs from leaders in the field.
13. A DNA discovery I made was: identifying the origin of Mary Bytheway, my 4 x great-grandmother who I’d been stuck with in Kidderminster for over 20 years. Thanks to a sudden influx of three DNA matches all descending via different routes from a Bytheway couple over the border in Shropshire, my Mary was ‘orphaned’ no more. Of course, it’s kind of turned into a bit of a one-name study as usual. I ended up ploughing through records tying all the Bytheway branches in with one another to eliminate all other possibilities!
14. I taught a genimate how: to access some records she needed via a different route. Sometimes we get used to a particular source used via a well-worn path of bookmarked sites or venues, we are all creatures of habit. Often if we lose access via that route there are alternative (and just as kosher!) ways of getting to that information. So much is to be found in more than just one place these days.
15. A brick wall I demolished was: Since I’ve already mentioned the major ones in my own tree, I’d have to say a highlight was scoring a ‘PB’ in speed to identify a client’s birth parent! Less than 24 hours to answer her lifelong question beyond a shadow of a doubt. However, I do need to acknowledge that she had some helpfully large DNA matches! It was certainly a wonderful feeling to be able to call her and say that I had found his name after warning her it could potentially take many months for the right combination of matches to align!
16. A great site I visited was: soooo many to choose from, but here’s one I haven’t mentioned before and just kind of stumbled across when doing some Irish research. It seems to be way more obscure than it should be. But let’s accentuate the positive. If you have Irish Catholic ancestors it is brilliant for identifying which Civil Parish their Catholic Parish was in and identifying the contiguous parishes. It even provides direct links to the relevant parish registers at the National Library of Ireland!
17. A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed was: ‘A Country Merchant, 1495-1520‘ by Christopher Dyer. This is a marvellous piece of social history around Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire using the account book of John Heritage who was a merchant-farmer in the wool business. It is a very engaging and informative read.
18. Zoom gave me an opportunity to: get to meet other members of the societies and associations that I am a member of and to continue to meet with my genimates regularly. It has been my social lifeline! A special highlight that ticks all my happy boxes was Talking Family History fortnightly on Friday nights. I absolutely recommend this to anyone who wants to keep up with what’s happening in the genealogy world and have a relaxed time with delightful people!
19. I am excited for 2021 because: THIS year will be the one in which I finally crack the mystery of Frederick Seal’s father (my last remaining unknown great-great-great-grandparent)! I’ve recently identified a DNA match at 23andMe as being of that line, which takes me another step closer, I’m getting quite a group of matches across the various platforms. I am determined…
20. Another positive I would like to share is… This year has been a year of consolidation and settling into my new era. In a way it has forced me to do it very thoroughly and without the distraction of ‘normal life’. Seven months of lockdown, when it had to happen, came at the perfect time to have had almost as much of a positive impact as a negative one personally. Onwards and upwards from here for all of us I hope! Let’s continue to ‘accentuate the positive’!