Wednesday, December 30, 2015

2015 My Genealogy Year in Review

It's the end of the year and I decided to review the highlights and lowlights of my genealogical year.

Highlights: 

January Thomas MacEntee began the 2015 Genealogy Do-Over and I joined in the challange.  I am only doing a modified version since I have too many years invested to totally start over but I am reviewing things with new eyes.  I also spent time preparing for my trip to FGS/Roots Tech 2015 and my first trip to the Family History Library.
February  My trip to Salt Lake City!  I spent a week in Salt Lake City attending FGS2015 and Roots Tech 2015 adding a few extra days to explore the Family History Library.  I learned more about using Swedish Church Records, DNA, Fold3, Self-Publishing. and creating citations.  I met and visited with so many genealogistsit would be impossible to name them all!  Atteding this type of event always re-kindles my excitement.
April - May Received the results of the DNA tests that my son and I took.  I now manage 4 DNA accounts.  Time to learn more about reading the DNA reports.
June  I attended the Southern California Genealogy Society Jamboree in Burbank, CA.  Another round of awesome seminars by world class genealogists!  Meeting old friends and making new ones. This was my fourth Jamboree.  They are so much fun.  I had volunteered to help with some of the seminars as well.  It's another way to meet other genealogists.
July TheNational Library of Ireland released the Catholic Parish Registers on-line!  Using them I was able for find the marriage records of Patrick Connery and Mary Leahy on 4 Mar 1851 as well as both of their baptismal records documenting birthdays and parents names.  I have also found the baptism records for all 11 of their children.
October Our local genealogy group held a genealogy workshop open to the community to celebrate October is National Family History Month.  Members demonstrated Ancestry.com Library Edition, Photo Books created using family research, the Genealogy room at the library, Members of the Cherokee Township helped explain how to find Native American records.  The food drive held in conjunction with the workshop collected 151 pounds of food during the month for the local food bank.
November  Got Scott's adoptive uncle to do an ancestryDNA test with Scott to verify that he was really adopted.  Scott will now have DNA tests from all three companies!

Lowlights

Sadly neglected my blog this year - I promise to do better next year
Did not enter the Family History Writing Challange
Kind of dropped out of the Do-Over
Followed too many BSOs down the rabbit hole

I am glad I listed the highlights first since there are more of them!  All in all not a bad year.
The next post will set out my goals for 2016 which I have been considering this week.

Happy New Year!

No comments:

Post a Comment