Reaching Goals: Step by Step with Fortitude

 

It is likely just as true for genealogy as for any other endeavor: you can get more accomplished if you set research goals for yourself. The caveat, of course, is that you actually do the work you've set out for yourself.

In the case of my process of selecting my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors to research for the year, each monthly focus has sub-categories. One of those categories is to review, update, and catalogue my DNA matches for that specific ancestor. This may all seem elementary and routine—after all, you can't accomplish a goal without tackling it step by step—but there is another component I've lately discovered is also needed in this process: fortitude.

Take this month's research focus: my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather Nicholas Snider. While a second great-grandfather may not seem that far removed from our own generation—I actually know some people who have lived to see their own second great-grandchildren—in my mother-in-law's case, her family's generations were long. By that, I mean there was a lot of time elapsed between generations, especially when it came to those Catholic families with many children. A youngest child of a youngest child could mean generations that were separated by forty years or more.

Bottom line for all that: Nicholas Snider had a lot of descendants to trace. And there were quite a few of them in the past decade who have become fascinated with DNA testing. To put some numbers on this detail, my DNA test for this line—provided courtesy of my husband for his mother—currently has 261 matches tied to Nicholas Snider's line.

Let's step back to that research goal for this month: Nicholas Snider. If part of that goal is to verify all those DNA matches, I've got a lot of work ahead of me. Granted, part of the step-by-step process for the past ten years has been to research each of the descendants of this ancestral founding immigrant, Nicholas Snider. There are a lot of names—plus documentation to verify—already in place in my mother-in-law's tree, thanks to that decade-long, step by step process. But that is just the foundational work. Next is the process of going through each match listed on Thru-Lines (for those Ancestry DNA matches), to verify their connection to this most recent common ancestor.

My genealogy happy dance for this weekend is that I completed the review of all DNA matches who link to Nicholas' eldest son, Jacob. When I started this project at the beginning of April, that meant reviewing eighty DNA matches—but something happened along the way: the number of DNA matches inexplicably reduced by one, then by another, leaving the count for my task now at seventy eight matches to verify.

Still, that's seventy eight people with records to verify. Yet, step by step, I got through the process. True, there were five I simply couldn't verify. That may be due to insufficient access to records—some states' records are more available online than others—but it could also be owing to mistakes in the match's own tree. I did spot a couple matches for whom documentation didn't seem to support the trees from which ThruLines draws its information.

One helpful tactic I tried this month was to start work on this DNA match list from the bottom rather than from the top. I had always done so from the top in the past, but I was concerned that I would run out of steam before finishing—and besides, I would simply be repeating the process if I started from the top once again. So I reversed engines and headed to the bottom of the pile this time.

Another approach was to keep a separate list of each match I completed, to ensure I hadn't skipped any—and, as I realized was also important, to note each "match" for whom I couldn't supply documentation or find verifiable connections.

Once at the top of the list, having completed the process for each descendant of Jacob Snider, it was time to move on to the next son of Nicholas Snider—but which one? I toyed with the idea of moving to the next largest grouping—that would be the descendants of Simon Snider, for whom I'll need to tackle sixty DNA matches—but decided on a different approach. Rather than jump around on the readout—not to mention, deal with another daunting number—I opted to simply go down the list as it was provided by ThruLines. 

With that, my next grouping to work on is the twenty eight DNA matches linked to Nicholas' son Lewis. Twenty eight seems like such a breeze after eighty, giving me a psychological lift from the grind of the last series. But strangely enough, working on this different set of descendants brings its own "flavor." I've already spotted two ThruLines charts which simply can't be possible. One was a case of confusing two different men with the same first name but differing middle names; the other will require building out the proposed match's own tree, as ThruLines connected that tree with an ancestral woman for whom I can find no marriage record.

Despite the different problems I'm encountering with this second ancestral line, I've already completed eight of the twenty eight listed DNA matches for Lewis Snider's line. And the next son of Nicholas after that will be Aloysius Joseph Snider, who represents only four DNA matches. Each segment completed brings me step by step closer to finishing this research goal. Though I had my doubts at the beginning of the month that I would completely tackle this pile of 261 DNA matches, getting over that first hurdle of nearly eighty matches was certainly an encouragement.

Looking Back

 

One problem with plans is that they always seem to point our attention to the future. Sometimes, we need to reserve time for looking back.

Take my current annual plan for family history research, which I call my Twelve Most Wanted. Each month, I set aside time to focus on researching one ancestor. Along with some specific research goals—usually questions arising from what I was unable to resolve the last time I tackled that ancestor's story—the goal was to push forward, er, backwards in time enough to be within sight of the preceding generation's details.

Usually, such plans meant I had far more to do in one month than I calculated during my annual planning session during that dreamy time between Christmas and Epiphany. I generally left each month with a to-do list to get me started for the next time I visited that research topic. This month, unfortunately, has not been quite the same. And, as I look at the topics I've selected for the final quarter of this year, I realize I may be up against the same dilemma for each of the next three months, as well.

What to do with the extra time? After all, we were only halfway through this month when I realized there is very little more that I can devote to the Tully and Flannery lines, despite all the additional time remaining.

That's when I realized the problem with goals: they always push us forward. What is needed is to fold in a regular time of review, a feedback loop, of looking backward at what's already been accomplished, to see whether any additional adjustments need to be made.

For instance, during each month's iteration of the Twelve Most Wanted, behind the scenes I am churning out a corollary goal: document the lines of descent for that particular ancestor. This I do for purposes of connecting DNA matches to my family tree, but it takes time to complete each line. Sometimes, by the end of the month, I mark my stopping point with the best of intentions to return to the task. Often, those markers lay neglected where I parked them at the close of that month's research effort.

This reminds me that, inside any research plan, time should be allotted for returning to review progress on old goals. Checking to see whether anything else could be added, or any loose ends tied up, should become part of the routine as I move through each month's research goal.

I certainly have a lot of incomplete goals to revisit. Remember that unfinished business on my Tilson line? I'm still working on adding all the descendants of my fourth great-grandfather, Peleg Tilson. The same could be said about the cousins in my Broyles line, about whom someone asked me just the other day. And, of course, my Taliaferro line—which reaches even farther back into the colonial history of this country—needs continued attention, as well. And these were only the first three months' worth of this year's research plans. There is far more yet to review.

I think it is safe to say there is plenty to review before Ancestor #10 gets released for the upcoming month's project. Let's take the upcoming two weeks to revisit these three ancestors from the beginning of the year to see how progress has fared.

Goals Provide the Thrust

 

Goals, in family history research as in any other endeavor, provide the thrust. Sure, if you don't have a target, you'll never know whether you hit it. But having a goal turns out to bestow its secondary nature: it also gives the motivation to get moving toward that finish line.

In the last few years of this blogging process, I've come to appreciate my year's-end habit of lining up my research goals for the upcoming year—a process I've dubbed my Twelve Most Wanted. For each month, I target one ancestor whose appearance in my genealogical database turns out to be, well, lackluster. Then, I assign that ancestor to a specific month, and devote that month to finding as many new references for that person as I can.

That, however, is not to say I don't work on any other family history projects during the year. There may be items that pop up—like discovering a relative's obituary containing information I had not included in my records, or someone in the family announcing a new great-grandchild. Of course, the never-ending stream of DNA matches also provides the impetus to work on other branches, all while retaining that main focus on my Most Wanted ancestor for the month.

This month has been somewhat different for me. The Eggert line, as I've already explained, is what my family calls an "outlaw" line—the line of my father's brother-in-law. While I am adding a few individuals from that line to my tree, most of what I am discovering will go into a separate tree for that special project I am tackling, not my own family tree.

Since today marks my biweekly research recap—and the penultimate one for this year—it would be natural to assume I hadn't made any progress on my own tree, nor even the tree of my in-laws. After all, I've been consumed with this puzzle concerning my uncle's line.

However, don't forget those other, minor goals churning away in the background. I've had an ongoing, unfinished project since writing about my Tilson line a few months ago. And that brief week at the end of November which I spent working on that unexpected McClellan photo project prompted another call for follow up. So there has been some progress this month on my own trees.

For instance, in the past two weeks, my tree has jumped by 184 documented names, simply because of work on these two unfinished projects from previous months. My tree now has 31,061 total individuals. Though there has been zero activity on my in-laws' tree—though we'll return to that tree next spring—that tree still stands at 30,270. Since of the two main trees I'm tackling, the second one is the easiest for making fast progress, I'll catch up and surpass my own tree in no time, once I return to my mother-in-law's lines.

In two more weeks, I'll be wrapping up the tally for the year's work. It can be quite rewarding to see how these increases add up over time. Keeping an eye on the goal—my Twelve Most Wanted, or whatever goal you might select—and doing a little work at a time, but consistently over the year, does produce a rewarding result at the end. There may be a week—or even a messy month, as I've sometimes faced—where the progress is less than encouraging. But looking back over the year, you can finally see the dribbles of work here and there do add up.

Still, I doubt the progress would be as robust without a target to propel me forward. Somehow, just keeping that target, that goal, in mind—and right before my eyes—doesn't just provide an end point. It provides the mile markers along the way, and the push of encouragement from behind to keep me moving ever forward.

Following the Ex

 

What do you do when your family history research brings you up short in front of a second spouse? Do you follow the story of the "ex" and all the kin connected to that new add to the family? Do you bother organizing all those step-relatives in their proper place in the family tree? Or do you prefer to remain satisfied with direct-line-only pedigrees?

Lately, I've been working on a fourth cousin descended from my Tison ancestors in Georgia. One particular line presented the "his, hers, and theirs" scenario for the children (sometimes with multiple iterations of the process), and I didn't just want to glean the direct-line relatives and then walk away.

That meant seeking out the subsequent obituaries for the previously-deceased or divorced spouse's other wife or husband, gleaning the names of all the children in common for that couple, then transposing the details into the blended family's picture. When a research goal is to find a place in the family tree for each of the descendants of one's ancestors, as mine is for DNA testing purposes, it is important to know who is who. That includes those collateral lines—and even all the details of children from their multiple marriages.

In selecting the final choice from my father-in-law's ancestors to pursue for the upcoming year's research goals, I feel the need to linger a little bit longer on the founding immigrant ancestor of his patriline, John Stevens. Immigrant John Stevens already figures in my Twelve Most Wanted for 2022 as my eighth choice for the upcoming year's research duties. However, what I find in the ninth month may help fill in some blanks if I miss the mark with August's research project.

The reason I'm confident of this possibility is that, like my Tison cousins, John Stevens had a second marriage. Of course, in that era in which he lived—the 1800s—his first wife was not exactly an "ex" but a wife who died following childbirth. Still, the research process is the same when it comes to sorting out the children. Though my father-in-law descended from John Stevens' first wife, the second wife bore him three daughters. They, too, have descendants who may be DNA matches—if only I know of their existence and can trace their line back to our mutual Stevens ancestor.

In addition, just as I've always wondered whether the Stevens surname was truly my father-in-law's "real" Irish patrilineal surname, I have questions about John's choice for a second wife. The reason? Though she also claimed to have emigrated from Ireland, her maiden name—Murdock—seems more likely to have been Scottish.

Running on the F.A.N. Club theory—that those who stay together through thick and thin may have an abiding reason for their connection, whether family, associates or long-time neighbors—I find it curious that the Irish immigrant patriarch claiming a not-particularly-Irish surname should choose, for his second wife, someone else from Ireland with a not-particularly-Irish maiden name. Could the association point us in the right direction to discover where John Stevens really came from?  

Finding the Founders

 

Even if it is not yet possible to determine the exact origin of an immigrant ancestor, it is a quite satisfactory approach to learn all that can be found on that individual (or couple), once they have arrived in their new homeland. With my mother-in-law's family tree, she has several ancestors who arrived in Perry County, Ohio, in the early 1800s and stayed there, along with all their descendants, for generations. Likewise, though I know where family members say those ancestors originated, I have yet to locate any reliable documentation demonstrating the facts.

For my fifth choice of the Twelve Most Wanted I will be researching in the upcoming year, I am torn between two founding families in my mother-in-law's family history. Unable to make the choice, I once again turned to DNA to help flip the coin. There are two family surnames—Gordon and Metzger—which have been in Perry County since the early 1800s, but my question is: which line has the most interesting possible DNA matches to connect to my mother-in-law's extended family tree?

I took a look at the Thru-Lines readout at Ancestry.com for each of those surnames for my husband's test results. Hands down, third great-grandfather Gordon has far and above more DNA matches listed for his account than his counterpart Metzger. Though I haven't done the grunt work to connect some of them to the tree, it was easy to spot, just at a glance, that putting the Gordon puzzle pieces together would be far easier to handle.

But that is not what big goals are about.

Opting for the messier—but far more likely to be interesting—goal of pursuing my mother-in-law's Metzger roots, my fifth Most Wanted ancestor will be an immigrant by the name of Michael Metzger, my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather. Born in 1783—but where is not yet confirmed, at least in my mind—he and his wife and at least one child somehow arrived in the New World and settled in Ohio before 1830.

There are many gaps in the records I've accumulated for Michael Metzger so far, and more work is needed, stateside. But the main research goal for this coming May is to see whether there is any indication of where in the old country the man and his wife—not to mention his son Michael, direct line ancestor of my mother-in-law—once lived before making that momentous decision to forsake all and leave for America.

Seeking an 1804 Immigrant's Story

 

The story of some ancestors reaches so far into the past that any paper trail has become sparse through crumbling records—or lack of any records at all. Such is particularly the case for immigrant ancestors moving into pioneer territory.

That is exactly the case with the family I'd like to focus on as the fourth choice for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2022. With this fourth choice, we also move from selecting ancestors from my mother's line, to that of my mother-in-law.

Once again, I'll let DNA guide my choice. It happens that my mother-in-law has ancestors on both sides of her family who descend from the same Snider ancestor. Each of her grandmothers can claim descent from 1804 immigrants Anna Elizabeth Eckhardt and Nicholas Schneider, who arrived with their children in Ohio by 1819. With the large families typical of Catholics of that era of time, that has produced, over generations, a large number of DNA matches leading back to that same couple. 

It's time for me to connect the dots and clean up my Snider/Snyder/Schneider database. After all, the whole reason we use DNA testing for genealogical purposes is to organize—and hopefully extend—our family tree. I don't just want to plug those matches into my tree and call my job done; I want to see whether there is any chance to push the line back yet another generation.

Thus, in examining what can be found on founding ancestors Nicholas and Anna Elizabeth, I'll trace them backwards in time from Perry County, Ohio, to each stop on the way leading them there from their arrival at port on the east coast. Sifting through any records that can be found on this couple and their children, we'll see whether any clues reveal the exact location of their European origin.

12 For '22

 

In this lull following the celebration of Christmas, I've long learned to use this quiet time to assemble my thoughts and plans for the upcoming year. This includes my hopes for the upcoming research year, in particular my goals for tackling the research puzzles which have kept me stumped.

A couple years ago, I borrowed from the age-old custom of celebrating the twelve days of Christmas, and have since re-purposed that set of days between Christmas and Epiphany to outline my plans for learning more about what I call my "Twelve Most Wanted" in my family tree. Sometimes, those Twelve Most Wanted are direct ancestors holding a place in our family's pedigree charts, but other times, I've chosen to follow a collateral line, or even a friend of the family.

The system of selecting those twelve is simple. For each month, I designate a different individual to research, based on a rotation through both mine and my husband's maternal and paternal branches. For the first quarter of the year, I select one ancestor from my mother's family for each month. For the second quarter, the same process is repeated, only this time, selected from my mother-in-law's family tree. For the summer months, I move to my father-in-law's pedigree to research three of his ancestors. And as we approach the end of the year, I tackle the difficult prospect of researching my father's Polish ancestry.

That said, the process begins again for a new year with today's selection. Usually that choice is made easy by the fact that I always have attended an in-depth training class in January at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, but this year will be different: not only has the SLIG winter term reverted its plans to virtual classes only, but I hadn't registered for any of the sessions. However, I'm missing my annual research trips to Salt Lake City so much that I'm hoping to return for an independent research project, possibly with a friend.

There is one branch of my mother's line which has been a longstanding brick wall for me: the line which I can push back no farther than the life of my fourth great-grandfather, Job Tison. I know he died in Glynn County, Georgia, in 1824, and that years earlier, he likely moved there from somewhere in North Carolina. But where? And who were his parents? Besides, what brought him to Georgia?

These are the type of research questions which require sitting down with some source material likely not found online. Hence, my hope to pursue these questions at a research library. Depending on the safety status of air travel in January, I may still be able to avail myself of such resources.

If not, I've got a "Plan B" to gather as much background information on the man's whereabouts and search for general information on the locations where he once lived. No matter which way the pandemic winds its way into our future, my goal will be to further understand the life and times of my fourth great-grandfather Job Tison.   

Like a First Love

 

Do you remember the first time you decided to delve into your family's history? No matter what the details were—or the result of your attempt—if you are still here reading about genealogy, the outcome of your attempt must have been enough to keep you coming back for more.

That's how I felt about the first family history project I tackled: not only did it get me "hooked" on genealogy, but ever since, I've had a particular fondness for the people whose stories helped build that family tree—kind of like what people say about a first love.

When I first decided to try my hand at researching a family tree, I already knew my father wasn't going to give up any clues to get me started on my mystery paternal line, so I didn't even try to wheedle anything out of him. My mother's line, while full of fascinating stories, was a heritage already so widely researched that I didn't think I could add anything new to what had already been documented. So I started with someone else's tree.

That tree didn't belong to a stranger, though. In addition to the line of a fourth-generation Californian, the other branch of the tree was represented by Marilyn Sowle Bean, the same woman whose photograph collection I was fortunate enough to recover from a local antique store, thanks to a helpful tip.

The Bean family tree is one full of stories of settlers sailing around the horn, and others traveling across the plains. Stories of war and deadly disease, balanced by success and life's enjoyments. It comes complete with brides from Australia and Canada, and rumors of French heritage and untraceable name changes blocking research progress to the past.

As a first research project, Marilyn's tree represented a far different research challenge than we experience today. This was not only my first attempt at genealogical research, but it was research done before the advent of personal computers. Every document found came with a personal contact at repositories and government offices. There was no Find A Grave to consult for photos of headstones; if I wanted a picture, I brought my single lens reflex film camera to the cemetery—no matter how far away—then sent the film away to be processed before I could see whether the picture was a keeper.

Researching California families was probably the easiest task I could have attempted, given those conditions. Living only an hour's drive from the state capital, I had plenty of resources close at hand. Still, it was a far different world than what we enjoy now with the convenience of today's digitized documents and online resources. Perhaps that contributes to that soft spot I have for the research project for Marilyn's family.

I've written quite a bit about Marilyn's extended family in past years—both her Sowle side and her husband's Bean side—but there is much more to discover. Even though it isn't my own family's story, it certainly is one for which I hold a certain fondness. Perhaps it is because, like a first love, it claims an unforgettable hold on me. Besides, I need to go back and do some clean up work; updated resources make that project so much easier to accomplish now.

Since my plans for November's ancestor from my Twelve Most Wanted list have fallen through, Marilyn's extended family will provide enough of a research challenge to fill the month, instead. Besides, I've got some long-forgotten items still to accomplish on the to-do list for this family. Tomorrow, we'll talk about the impetus that got me started on Marilyn's project so many years ago. Perhaps it is a question you've had to grapple with, too.   

Double Indemnity

 

Now I've gone and done it. With less than a week to go before the close of this month, I've barely scratched the surface on my goal to find more information on Ancestor Number Ten of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2021. I'm literally drowning in Polish finding aids—lists of online resources to help me locate digitized records in Poland, or more accurately, Posen in Prussia, the land where my second great-grandfather Franz Jankowski once lived.

When the tedium of endless genealogical searching brings up little in the way of fascinating stories—or even helpful research tips—one tactic might be to fast-forward to the next month's goal. After all, it's only six days until the new month's arrival. But that's where my accidental research death doubles my dilemma: why, oh why, did I choose to couple the search for Franz's forebears with that of his wife?

Granted, though I have hardly another word to say about discoveries on Franz's background, there are a few details that can be wrung from Franziska Olejniczak's own story. That hardly will add up to a month of scintillating discussion, though. Time to look for Research Plan B—another research challenge worth enough discoveries to double for the two possibilities which, so far, have landed just beyond our grasp. In the meantime, though, it would be worth our while to reflect on the state of not finding what we hoped to find.

While I look through these Polish websites—wonderful resources I'm grateful to have in the dearth of records on our go-to American genealogical websites—I can't help but notice the section called "Last Added" at BaSIA. Just during the past twenty four hours, that section indicated almost five hundred records were uploaded. Granted, that dwarfs the ten thousand records added just the day before that. The key, though, is that while I may not be able to find the record I'm seeking this month, give it a year and maybe the picture will be much clearer then.

Patient researchers remember to revisit promising websites. I may not have found what I hoped to see concerning Franz Jankowski. I may not be able to find much more on his wife, Franziska Olejniczak, either—this time around. I'll discuss a bit about what I've found on her in the coming days, but then I'll be ready to pivot. Genealogical research always has another branch to attend to on the ever-growing family tree. 

A New Month, a New Ancestor

 

This year marks the second year I have organized my family history research goals around the monthly pursuit of what I call my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors. Well into 2021 now, I've completed three months focused on my mother's family, followed by three months devoted to my mother-in-law's family. July brought the exploration to Ireland with the first of my goals related to my father-in-law's forebears, and this month continues that series.

While I have researched each of these ancestors in the past, there is one other detail they all hold in common: each of them has previously stumped me. Whether for lack of online records, or enigmatic details—try differentiating several Kelly ancestors from Ireland, for instance—each one has seen me set aside their challenge for a more opportune time. The hope has been that new record sets will be digitized and brought online, or that I'll be able to travel to the ancestor's home location to inspect documents which couldn't be found online.

This month, our focus will be on Margaret Flannery, one of my father-in-law's great-grandparents on his maternal side. While each of my father-in-law's eight great-grandparents were born in Ireland, when I first started researching that particular line on his mother's side, I didn't even know that Margaret and her husband, Dennis Tully, were the great-grandparents I needed to focus on in that line. Moreover, I had no clue that before their children appeared in Chicago around the time of the great fire there, they had lived in Canada. All I had was the presumption that of course they had originated in Ireland.

It took thorough research of all the collateral lines I could find to discover that Margaret Flannery's immigrant Tully children stopped first in a tiny village called Paris in the county of Brant in Ontario, Canada—using a research process similar to the job I'll need to complete this month before I can achieve my goal of discovering more about Margaret's origin. More than that, I didn't even know her maiden name until a fortuitous turn of events provided a handwritten copy of a baptismal record for her son John and corroborated those details with an almost identical such note provided to the family of her daughter Johanna.

The beauty of all those serendipitous discoveries was that they filled in the blanks concerning Margaret's maiden name and the location where her children were born in Ireland, a valuable discovery, indeed. That, however, doesn't mean the search is over.

My hope, of course, is to push back the line yet another generation on the Flannery side. With lack of documentation during that era for Catholics in Ireland—we're pushing back to the 1830s and beyond by then—the process will again require careful analysis of collateral lines and other village and parish information in the hopes of finding clues.

With that challenge facing us, let's take the relatively easy first step of an introduction to our Most Wanted Ancestor challenge for August. Tomorrow, we'll meet Margaret Flannery and review what little we do know about her life's story. 

 

Above: A handwritten verification of John Tully's 1842 baptism, providing his mother's maiden name of Flannery, drawn up by a priest at the Catholic parish at Ballina, County Tipperary (by then consolidated with the parish across the river in Killaloe, County Clare), dated March 7, 1887; original letter in the author's possession.

 

Planning . . . Or is it Dreaming?

 

What is it about this pandemic season that makes us feel as if we'll never travel again? I already know that isn't true. My husband is planning a business trip to Oklahoma, and my daughter has already made it to Hawaii. Even I, without the shield of a vaccine on board, managed to survive a couple emergency get-out-of-town trips this year.

But when it comes to a research journey to benefit those never-ending questions about our family history, that sort of travel seems out of sight. Yes, I know I can request that copies of records can be mailed to me. But it is not the same thing as going there myself. The thrill of the "hunt" is still a motivation.

Thus, here I sit, trying to gather my thoughts and determine what I would hunt for, if I had the opportunity to head back east to West Virginia and Pennsylvania. There have certainly been astute observations made by helpful readers—and I intend to follow up on these. But I can't seem to envision the opportunity to actually go there and get to work on any research plans.

Do you ever reach that stage of research malaise? Perhaps it is just an artifact of can't-do-that limits. Or maybe that, combined with ancestor exhaustion. I have, after all, worn myself to a frazzle, trying to invent ways around my research roadblock. I've tackled Mary Carroll Gordon's ancestry before, after all. This is not the first time I've tangled with this dead end.

I realize there is a camp within the family history milieu which believes in setting a research goal and sticking with it. Not so, for me. I sometime reach a point when I feel that I can forgive myself for laying aside an invincible research question.

There are many reasons why I give myself that permission. Every year, for instance, more and more records become digitized and available to view online. In addition, my travel plans can change—or at least they had in the past, when opportunities opened up to visit a new-to-me part of the country. I am, after all, amassing quite a collection of reasons to stop by that particular corner of the country, and once things open up, I just may be able to do so.

With all that in mind, I don't struggle too much with setting aside an unanswered research question at the end of its designated time. There will be another season to revisit Mary Carroll's story. Maybe next time, it will be in person, not within the limits of cyber-space.

If the struggle to find documentation regarding the connection between Mary Carroll and her parents—whether Anthony Carroll and his first wife or some other couple—was not a successful one this month, don't worry about setting that project aside for now. For next month, we've got another research question which has proven just as much a challenge as Mary's story. For that one, I've already wrestled with it before, so we may as well get an early jump on May's research goal.

With that, we'll begin laying down the preliminary groundwork for another of my mother-in-law's research challenges a few days early. Tomorrow, we'll meet Ancestor Number Five on my Twelve Most Wanted for 2021: Sarah Howard Ijams.

Old Acquaintances, New Year's Resolutions

 

We may be halfway through the first month of the year, but I am still running across blog posts about New Year's resolutions—or, at least, New Year's "goals." I started posting my plans early, using the old-fashioned twelve days of Christmas to detail one genealogy target per month for 2021. It's good to have a solid outline of what we hope to accomplish for the upcoming year's research.

Along the way, though, I realized one more thing about New Year traditions: as much as we try to look forward, that New Year's day is also a call for the Auld Lang Syne. No matter how much I try to look forward to the future with this flip of the calendar's page, I can't think of next year's plans without remembering the ones who, in the past, have been part of my research collaboration.

And so, that Auld Lang Syne call brings me to the realization that genealogical research is cyclical. We work on a specific line for a while, going until we can find no further trace of documentation on our farthest removed ancestral generation, then we shift to a different project in the hopes of gaining better headway. It is sometimes only when we retrace our steps on a particular line, years later, that we recall those distant cousins who walked that same research path with us, last time we visited that particular branch of the family.

In this past week, as I review my research goals for the upcoming year, I've realized there are three people with whom I really want to reconnect. Each one of them was someone with whom was shared a robust email dialog, sometimes over months, others through the years. One particular person was one with whom I last exchanged emails almost eight years ago. Another one was someone I actually had the pleasure of meeting, face to face, as we explored whether DNA testing would confirm my hypothesis about the family connection. Yet another woman has been so very helpful in sharing information, despite our initial doubt of any connection—another surprise, demonstrated through DNA, showing us otherwise.

I have heard many fellow researchers lately mention their disappointment when, in reaching out to others tracing the same family lines, the enthusiasm for sharing information was not reciprocated. Yes, there are some who may not—yet!—show any interest in exchanging details or working together on a brick wall line. But that is not to say that is an artifact of a bygone era. While you may have to search for those who share that kindred spirit, there are genea-friends out there to be found. And, once found, to recall during those Auld Lang Syne moments, then reach out and reconnect. 

 

Don't Forget DNA

 

Recently, one of the bloggers I read had put a quaint spin on what has become of the popularity of DNA testing: that the bloom has come off the rose of genetic genealogy. While that may be the case—after all, news reporting the identity of the long-mysterious Golden State Killer put a chill factor on this very technique—DNA matches have been the key to unlocking the identity of several of my own brick wall ancestors.

Despite the downturn in testing, I'll still look to matches for my research in the coming year. I couldn't possibly leave this month's topic of goal setting for genealogy without touching on the benefits of this tool.

When I first began using DNA as a tool to build my family trees—this June will mark eight years since I asked my brother to participate in testing his Y-DNA to trace our father's mystery patriline—the results received from the five companies I used for various family members more often prompted a puzzled "Who are these people?"

The frustration of receiving DNA matches without the corresponding aha! moments of names connected to specific spots on the pedigree chart can certainly be a disincentive to applying this tool. But what a powerful tool it has demonstrated itself to be, for those who apply it with perseverance. Sometimes, it has been a matter of needing to sit back and wait until a match actually appears on a specific family line—after all, it takes two to tango. Other times, the benefit only shows when we get smart about using additional tools to mine the information buried in the avalanche of those hundreds of matches that eventually do arrive in our account.

Sorting and categorizing those matches becomes the task that helps delineate which cousin belongs to which part of the family. It can seem a daunting task at the first—but the more matches which are correctly connected to your tree, the more matches will get clarified with that same organizing effort. It's as if finding the proper place for one match makes way for others to follow suit. I've used the "shared matches" tool at AncestryDNA, the "in common with" tool at Family Tree DNA, and—my favorite—the AutoClusters tool featured at MyHeritage, which was developed by Evert-Jan Blom of Genetic Affairs. All of these have helped sort the jumble into a manageable process.

You can be sure that the very DNA tools which led me to deduce who my paternal grandfather's parents might be are not going to be set aside just because I made this one discovery. That's all the more reason to keep using these techniques and tools in the coming year. As these tools assist me in visualizing where in that ever-expanding family tree those DNA matches belong, I am using each company's system to identify and flag each match and format the results so they can power me through further discoveries. At Ancestry, for instance, I'm tagging each DNA match and using their icon system to mark where each one belongs in the big picture. The more matches tied to the right line in the pedigree chart, the easier it is to link others to the right place.

That, in fact, is precisely what I have targeted to continue in 2021: going through the nearly two thousand DNA-matching cousins remaining—through fourth cousin, that is—and sorting them into the right pedigree lines. Along with that, I'll continue reaching out to matches to discuss our connection and share information, if I have a tidbit to share. That has become a research habit over the years, not something which needs to be written up as a "goal" for the new year.

With that, I've outlined my research goals and processes to maintain in the upcoming year. We'll take a look again in December to see how the big plan has fared in weathering the journey of the next eleven months. As we've learned from the past, it's not always easy to predict what a November will bring us—let alone a March. Perhaps the most practical new year's goal is to remain flexible as we navigate the unknowns in the year ahead.  

Baker's Dozen

 

It was during childhood trips to the local bakery when I learned from my dad just what a "baker's dozen" meant. I grew up in the New York City metro area, and we had specialty bakeries offering everything from fresh-made bagels to Italian treats like the Neapolitan struffoli within driving distance. While struffoli might be just about the only dessert for which the generosity of a baker's dozen would be pointless, I quickly learned about the bonus that comes by ordering twelve.

Now that I've completed a listing of twelve items, myself—my Twelve Most Wanted for my research goals for 2021, I thought I'd close out the festive holiday season by throwing in a bonus, myself—an addendum to those thoughts about goals and genealogy. Searching for those twelve ancestors isn't the only task I've set for myself in the coming year, of course; I have far more that I hope to accomplish each month. I'm sure you do, too. Pushing back the generations on our forebears may be exciting when we locate that new name, but there are other goals to consider, as well.

As I work my way backwards in time, hacking away at those brick wall ancestors, I need to consider the clutter that always seems to be left in the wake of that accomplishment. I am still unearthing old records and files from storage boxes, and realizing I need to align what I now have in digital format with those old "notes to myself" from a lifetime of research.

This is where the system approach I mentioned the other day comes in: I have to develop a way to dispatch those stacks of paper without destroying any document not already duplicated in my virtual records. I could take the heroic approach and say I'm going to sit at my computer and enter all the data until the stack is gone—ta da!—but we all know such an approach rarely brings us to the finish line in one sitting. Thus, the plan for a system to tackle the paper pile. In my case, I'm just going to take the reasonable road: do one page of records each day. Easy and do-able. And hopefully, soon done.

Another goal that needs to be built concurrently with a research system is that of continuing education. As these ancestral quests lead to strange new territory, I find myself researching areas with which I am totally unfamiliar. Not to worry, as I've learned to grasp tools to help chart those unfamiliar research territories, but I need to remember that we never really stop learning, even in a task as repetitive as backtracking the begats. While the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy—soon to start, this month—takes up a significant portion of my time in January, I want to develop a system to continue that learning habit throughout the year. Involvement with my local genealogical society will help bolster that learning curve, as will visits to other society meetings, whether across the state or across the continent. Video meetings are like that: breaking the barriers of distance.

A third bonus goal is to keep writing. While we may find those new names and dates we covet as family history researchers, what makes the data points come alive for the rest of our family is the way we connect those dots to piece together our ancestors' stories. I hope you will join me in finding time to reconnect those family history dots into stories to encourage and inspire your own family's trail through the challenges we face now as we move into this new year.  

So Much for Plans

 

While the new year is a time when so many people like to devise plans—or at least make heartfelt resolutions—it is often a time more full of hope than reality. Take 2020: how many of us could have foretold, at this point one year ago, that we would be spending at least three quarters of the year essentially under house arrest?

But plans are a tangible sign of good intentions, bred from hope. And with that, I make the preposterous gesture of assuming that, eleven months from now, I will be working on a research plan to delve even further into my mystery grandfather's patriline. For Ancestor #12 of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2021, I want to learn more about my recently-discovered second great-grandfather, Johann Puchała, and his possible wife, Susanna Radomska—if, that is, that was actually who they were.

To even make a statement like that is more than I could even have hoped, one year ago. It took a chain reaction of discoveries, precipitated by some unexpected DNA matches, to start me looking in the right direction for the answer to my childhood question about where my father's family came from.

Sometimes, we keep looking so long and so hard for the answers to our family history questions that we get caught by surprise when the answer finally shows up. It's as if we never really believed there would be an answer.

Yet, do I dare to presume that my research luck will hold out for one more year? Now that I have the possible names of my paternal grandfather's paternal grandparents, can I learn anything further on this family from a country—Prussia—which is no longer in existence? And how can I guarantee that I will actually make these discoveries in December of 2021?

Of course I can't. None of us can guarantee anything. But we can plan to work on the process. And that is the key.

For this (hopefully) bright new year, I've laid out the plans for where I am going to direct my family history research focus for 2021. I've selected one ancestor for each of the twelve months of the new year: my Twelve Most Wanted. All that's left at this point is to work the plan. It doesn't really matter whether I fail or succeed—although succeeding would be a vast, and more fun, improvement over failing. 

The point is to steadily focus on specific research goals, and to make progress toward discovering more about each of these twelve ancestors. Who knows what curves will get thrown at us in the course of yet another year in our future. But does it matter? The main point is stating what we hope to accomplish, and working that plan to the best of our ability. No matter what.

Let's Make it a Pair

 

As common a surname as that of the ancestor I named yesterday as Ancestor #10 of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2021, his wife's maiden name was entirely opposite. Franz Jankowski married a woman from a family by the name of Olejniczak.

Why not complete the pair and make Franziska Olejniczak Ancestor #11? With a surname like that, surely the search for this couple will come up with some helpful results.

What I know about Franziska so far is that she lived in the region once known as Poznan, or the province of Posen, in Prussia. She was my paternal grandmother's maternal grandmother—reachable not on the patriline, not on my matriline, but somewhere in the thick middle of all my autosomal DNA results.

And that's as far as I've gotten, even after all those years of family history research. Remember, this is the side of my family which was insistent about never revealing their roots, once they immigrated to America. It has only been in the last couple years—and mostly thanks to DNA matches—that I've discovered anything more on my father's family.

Since genetic genealogy is not only a key tool to unlock my family's secrets but a resource for connecting with distant cousins I never knew I had, of course I'm curious to see whether there are any other descendants of that Olejniczak line, as well. That's why I'll be building out that family line in as many directions as I can: ancestry, descendants, and collateral lines.

I'm presuming a name like that will surely stand out—or have, like so many other surnames I've researched, daughtered out or gone into oblivion for lack of descendants. I aim to discover what can be found on that surname with my research goals for Ancestor #11 this year.

Because Now, I Can

 

Unlocking international resources for genealogical research has been an encouraging move for me. It seems that, having taken those first few tentative steps, delving deeper into the records of a non-English-speaking country is less intimidating. As more and more genealogically-minded websites open up outside North America, my chances of making research progress greatly improve.

Take that experience I had in discovering my paternal grandfather's true identity this past fall. Once I became familiar with the two Polish websites available, I could see how many more records might be available to answer further family history questions—simply because now, I can access them and navigate through their stores. By next fall, hopefully, there will be even more resources available for the mere click of a mouse.

That's a good turn of events. Now that I'm up to considering the last three of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2021, that set of research goals will be devoted to my father's roots. And what a jumble of secret identities that was. It's interesting to see how, once the linchpin ancestor gets identified, the rest of the blanks seem nearly to auto-fill with information.

Take my father's maternal grandmother. Depending on which document I used, her identity could have been two totally different names. Thankfully, once I discovered those Polish websites, I was able to confirm the right name: Marianna Jankowska. But why stop there? Now that I have access to records in Poland, I can push back one or two more generations. What about her parents? And any possible siblings?

For Ancestor #10, I'll tackle Marianna's father's identity—a man I only know now by the name of Franz Jankowski. I'll look mainly for clues about his parentage, of course, but I also want to know whether there were any others in his family—especially other children who, like Marianna, immigrated to North America.

One main driver of that curiosity is to identify possible distant cousins, especially if there are any among my unidentified DNA matches. While Jankowski is not an uncommon name, I'm interested to see whether that surname plus the specific location in the originating country of Poland will help fill in the blanks for some of those unconnected DNA cousins. That information would also lend a hand in chromosome mapping to see if I can identify any specific segments that can be attributed to that specific second great-grandfather.

This past year has certainly opened up many possibilities for me to build out that family tree for a man whose past had been such an enigma to our family. After zero research progress for so many years on my father's family history, it is awe-inspiring to see how quickly the details are falling together to form a coherent story. Franz Jankowski will provide just one-eighth of that entire tale, of course, but it will be a voice no longer silenced by the secrecy of his descendants. 

The One Who Got Away —Or Maybe he Didn't

 

There's always that renegade in the family tree—the black sheep who refuses to let his story be found. If you search hard enough, you are sure to discover that one's history, or at least part of it—the part that tantalizes but never provides the relief of knowing the rest of the story.

In my father-in-law's family, we have such an ancestor. He did "get away." Or maybe he didn't. The family lore is that, though Stephen Malloy hastily escaped Ireland at the time of civil unrest, he was shot and killed upon arrival in Boston.

What we do know is drawn from a long-preserved letter he had a companion write on his behalf. The letter was to be sent to his wife on the eve of his trip to America. 

The positive part: at least that journey to Boston can be corroborated by documents; his name is included on the passenger list of the very ship he named in his letter. The drawback: once he landed in Boston, he disappeared. No reports of murder or even disappearance at the hands of suspicious characters.

Needless to say, this man's mysterious end has circled around to the top of my research list for decades, but without any success at finding answers. But every year brings new research resources, and with hope perennially springing afresh, I'm game to take on Stephen Malloy this year for yet another attempt at finding proof of his demise.

With that, my father-in-law's great-grandfather will take his place in my upcoming research plans as Ancestor #9 of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2021. I'll cast that research net even farther afield than I did in past years, and examine local history in the Massachusetts region where he was last recorded, as well as scour newspaper reports and other resources for the region.

It would be fruitless to repeat the research steps I've taken in the past, so the plan will need to include a fresh approach. Besides, it would be nice to lay this family legend to rest. Mysteries always nag at me to uncover their answers. 

Getting Systematic About Reaching Goals

 

Welcome to the twenty first year of the twenty first century.

Not that we're out of last year's mess yet, but the main point is: we need to keep looking forward. The best way to handle that viewpoint is to come up with a plan—and in our case here, we are looking at ways to approach family history research from a distance. In other words, we need a system for achieving our research goals, despite the inability to travel or do hands-on work.

I've always valued systems thinking, much more than the traditional "New Year's Resolutions" way of approaching life. If I set up a system to accomplish new tasks, I am much more likely to make things happen by making things habits than I ever could with the good intentions which spawn resolutions. I barely could make it out of January with resolutions I've made in the past, but when I set up a system to insure I take certain steps, success usually gets baked right into the venture.

Not that I don't applaud those who take up, say, thirty-by-thirty research challenges. I know those techniques have helped a lot of people make progress with their family history research. But the momentum runs down when the month runs out; I need something that gets worked into my schedule on a daily basis. A habit.

Hence, my Twelve Most Wanted for the upcoming year. If I lay out a plan for key points I want to cover in the year's research, they seem to become more do-able. One ancestor a month doesn't ask much of a researcher, especially if the time to pursue the goal is already worked into the daily schedule. And once the system seems to work well, why not repeat it for the upcoming year? Embed these goals and activities into the daily routine, don't just make them a lofty dream.

With that in mind, for Ancestor #8 in 2021, I have another of my father-in-law's ancestors whom I need to see more clearly: a descendant of the Flannery clan. Fortunately for me, I discovered long ago that a Flannery association banded together in the early days of the Internet to preserve what could be found mentioning any Flannerys in County Tipperary, the very location where Margaret Flannery married Denis Tully and became one of my father-in-law's eight great-grandparents.

The story doesn't end in Ireland, of course. That same couple—Denis and Margaret Tully—moved their young family from their homeland in the midst of the Great Famine, and relocated to "Canada West." Fortunately, they didn't travel alone, and though I can't locate any passenger records for their journey across the Atlantic, I can find not only their records after arrival in Ontario, but signs that another Flannery family may have traveled with them.

Perhaps this year, for me, will be the year of the collateral lines. I often find that siblings of the direct lines I'm researching can lead me around a brick wall situation toward the useful answers I've been seeking. For Ancestor #8, Margaret Flannery, I'll be taking a serious look at all the Flannery folks I can find in her neighborhood. Perhaps one of them will lead me home to her parents' information, back in Ireland.

That collateral line plan, of course, is yet another example of letting the system do the heavy lifting for us in our ongoing family history research. Yes, it may turn out that there are still no usable documents online containing the Flannery names I'm seeking, but by following a research system, I'm already scheduled to set aside a month for that very purpose: to find what new details can be unearthed about a specific family line which, in the past, kept me from making research progress.   

Pink Picket Fence

 

Was it in a dream in the hazy dawn hour this morning when I thought I saw a pink picket fence? Perhaps in such an early waking moment, the vision stuck with me in an altered light, but there it was: a picture quaint, but not quite right. That serves well to describe Ancestor Number Five in this new Twelve Most Wanted for 2021: a woman whose story was nearly obliterated with the early end of her life.

Her name was Sarah Howard Ijams, and she was born to a family likely to yield my husband's sisters more than one claim to membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her unfortunate early death in 1829—possibly due to complications of childbirth—yielded very few records. Most important of those records would be that of her marriage to John Jay Jackson, which somehow was supposed to have occurred at a United States outpost in territory near the current city of Saint Louis, Missouri. How others could use the Jackson line for lineage qualification is not clear to me, given the lack of currently-existing records for that marriage. Perhaps, like the pink picket fence in my dream, the picture must have been shaded by a twilight zone of documentation in those earlier days of DAR.

Still, it is not surprising to find that one near relative of a Revolutionary Patriot could have intermarried with others of the same heritage, and that is indeed the case for this same Sarah Howard Ijams—which is why, this year, I want to approach the puzzle from her own family's side, rather than her husband's Jackson lineage. Even if I never find actual documentation for her marriage to John Jay Jackson, Sarah herself can lead my mother-in-law's descendants to DAR membership qualification. It's just a matter of piecing together some solid documentation and submitting the application—sans pink picket fence—a great goal for my fifth family history focus for the coming year.

 

Above: Winter Scene on a Canal, oil on panel by Dutch artist Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.