It is sometimes a race, at the end of a month, to finish a research goal I've set out for myself. This past month has been devoted to all things Snider, from the founding immigrant Schneider couple to their Snider descendants in Perry County, Ohio, and their Snyder relatives who moved westward from there to Iowa, Minnesota, and beyond.
From Nicholas and Anna Elizabeth Schneider's 1804 arrival in Philadelphia until now, their seven children who gave them grandkids have seen the subsequent generations multiply those results. The fact that the results have given my husband up to (now) 210 DNA matches barely begins to tell the story spanning those generations.
My customary biweekly progress check reveals just how many Snider kin I've been able to find. Just in the past two weeks, my in-laws' tree has exploded by 758 names—all, I assure you, Snider descendants. The impact on that tree is clear: the tree now holds documentation on 27,593 individuals.
In contrast, my own family tree managed an inconsequential sixteen name increase to reach a total of 28,296 individuals. When a family's line is not the focus of a month's research goal, only coincidental discoveries get added to the tally. Those are the times when I find an obituary, or a cousin announces a newborn baby, or I realize I had forgotten to add the latest family news from a letter or greeting card. Right now—and for the remainder of the summer—things will be quiet on my side of the family, as I continue to focus on my mother-in-law's lines for one more month, then switch to pursuing three months of research on my father-in-law's ancestors in my Twelve Most Wanted annual research plan.
Meanwhile, despite knowing that I'm researching prolific Catholic ancestors in American farm country, I still surprise myself when I see how many family members claim a twig on the branches of my mother-in-law's blossoming family tree.
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