Sunday, October 2, 2022

Keeping Your Eyes on Progress

 

Seeing progress can be encouraging. Like clockwork, I review my research progress, counting how many names I've added to the two main family tree databases I'm overseeing. That appears on my blog as my biweekly count. Since I've kept up this habit for years now, how could I have missed my last appointed recap? But for my mid-September check-in, I totally blasted past that routine.

Thus, for today's count, the numbers will tell the tale for an entire month's progress. This, of course, makes those numbers doubly encouraging.

For instance, on my own family's tree, last month saw the addition of 482 names. That family tree now includes 29,821 people. I suspect most of that progress can be attributed to a project I recently picked up behind the scenes to tidy up my Tilson line. If anything promising shows up in that exploration this year, I will likely add that as a goal for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2023.

Since my research goals for the past three months focused on my husband's family, there has been a good amount of progress shown there, as well. This past month brought in 186 newly-documented relatives, growing that tree to a total of 30,190 individuals.

Remember, trees of that size are examples of the type recommended by DNA coaches like Diahan Southard—more of a bush and less like a tree—the kind with low hanging fruit for DNA match exploration. I've been deliberately adding to those very wide trees of mine with that specific intent for years. I'm happy to say the effort has certainly paid off well, guiding me in attaching DNA matches to these trees.

No comments:

Post a Comment