A Leap Into a New Year

It wasn't on account of any special planning that I concluded my final biweekly review of 2017 on the very last day of the year; it just happened that way. Still, I wrapped up the year with 11,967 people in my mother's tree, 13,930 in my mother-in-law's tree, a puny 452 in my father's tree and 1,392 in my father-in-law's tree.

And then, I had to wait an entire two weeks before the next count. With that, the first month of the year is halfway over before I got to sit down and see where I was for my first tally of 2018.

There was a bit of paperwork to attend to, of course. I had to revamp my charts with this year's dates for each of those biweekly reports to come. And I needed to add columns to make provisions for my latest new project: DNA tests for both my husband and myself at MyHeritage. I bought the test kits during the company's Black Friday sale—$49 per kit if I bought at least two of them—so the results are not quite ready yet, but they will be, by the time I do my next report.

Since our family's holiday celebrations started—and thus, ended—later than usual, I wasn't exactly the most diligent of researchers for the past two weeks. I increased the count in my mother's tree by thirty five to reach 12,002, and my mother-in-law's tree by an even one hundred to reach 14,030. Once again, absolutely nothing of substance showed up on either my father's tree or my father-in-law's tree—a problem I'm determined to rectify this year.

Now that the holiday DNA sales results have started making their appearance on the tallies for the three companies where we've already tested, I'm hoping for some significant connections in the weeks ahead. As usual, we once again saw a decline in the numbers at 23andMe—the ongoing mystery—so I now have 1,107 matches (down ten) and my husband has 1,164 (down seven). I'm up twenty six at Family Tree DNA and twenty three at Ancestry.com DNA, giving me 2,638 and 820 matches, respectively. My husband's tests jumped nineteen and thirteen to yield 1,682 at FTDNA and 420 at Ancestry. I expect those increases will hold steady for another few weeks. Here's hoping they include some significant connections.

January being a month in which people's thoughts often turn to new year's resolutions and plans, I can't really say I have any special projects waiting in the wings. My overall goal of fleshing out the details on each of the descendants of my third great grandparents (and my husband's, as well) is a massive endeavor and I am far from completing that. It may take me another year before I can declare that one anywhere close to being  accomplished. Even then, I may miss several dozen of our contemporaries. Before I take on any other research commitments, I want to do a thorough combing through all available documentation to insure that this goal has gotten the diligent attention it deserves. We have too much invested in all these DNA tests. If nothing else, we owe it to ourselves to do so.

That, however, doesn't mean I don't have other research dreams. Put on hold by recurrent issues, I still want to get to Florida to research my McClellan ancestors in tiny Wellborn, a trip which will require time spent at the state archives. I also want to follow up on the incredible story of John Syme Hogue, my grandmother's fourth cousin—the man with several alias and a rap sheet full of crimes committed throughout the mid-western United States and Canada. And I want to revisit the saga of that lost family photo album which recently found its way back home to Cork, Ireland.

With a research platter as full as this one, who needs to add any new projects? I think I'll have enough to keep me busy as it is for 2018.