The verdict is in: spending weeks reading legal documents can slow down one's research progress. At least in the case of my family history goal for this month, the numbers have not sported their usual robust appearance. The path to Thomas Firth Rainey's parents may have finally yielded some of its previously-hidden answers, but that path has also led through some messy probate files. I am far from gathering all the details needed to take the next step.
All told, I did add 104 names to my mother's side of the family tree, mostly by working my way through the lines of descent from the collateral lines associated with these Rainey and Firth ancestors, and by examining DNA matches who tie into those same ancestral families. Granted, that was not bad for two weeks' research efforts—but I have seen better results. Right now, that family tree has a total of 41,908 documented individuals gleaned after well over a decade's work.
On the other side of the family, my in-laws' tree has stayed frozen in position for most of the past six months, now at 41,793 individuals. However, in less than a week, we will shift our focus to my mother-in-law's side of the family and begin work on that tree for April's research goal—though again, we will be working on ancestors removed from our current times by well over a century.
In the last few days of this month, we'll need to wrap up what can be finished of the court records regarding Isham Rainey and George Mealer and see whether any further details will add to this tally. Then, it will be time to draw up a summary report of what's been accomplished and use that to create a to-do list for the next time I tackle the Rainey and Firth family lines back in the Virginia colony where they first were found before the close of the eighteenth century.
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