When I hear people say that they are "finished" building their family tree, I always have to re-translate that idea in my own mind. Someone like that might have tired with the process of searching for ancestors, but you and I know there is always something—or someone—more to find. Whether that is owing to a new insight regarding an intractable mystery ancestor, or revelation of a previously missing clue, new discoveries bring more research possibilities.
It will be no surprise to learn that, in the past two weeks, I've added 348 names to my in-laws' tree, which now holds documentation for a total of 34,831 individuals. Since I've been concentrating on my mother-in-law's Ijams ancestry—the descendants and, hopefully, the ancestry of her fourth great-grandfather, William Ijams—progress had been hampered as I tried to push backwards to previous generations specifically using documented resources. But then, a surprise discovery thanks to the ThruLines tool at Ancestry.com broke opened an entirely new source of distant cousins—and another matrilineal route to explore for mtDNA purposes.
Following that, another surprise discovery that I may share ancestral Broyles connections with a fellow member of our local genealogical society has sent both of us on a chase to discover just how close that connection might be. Since our most recent common ancestor may point us to the level of seventh cousin or possibly a connection more distant, it's no surprise to see that the initial sketches of the connection have already added an unexpected sixty names to my own family tree, which now contains 38,366 names. And even though my research goal this month is to focus on the Ijams line in my mother-in-law's family, I'll continue working on this Broyles project behind the scenes. It's so fun to discover our friends and neighbors can also be relatives.
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