Accentuate The Positive Geneameme 2021

I was very happy when I saw that genie friend Jill aka Geniaus had created another Accentuate the Positive Geneameme. I was planning on writing a 2021 reflection post, and was happy to see the awaited geneame pop up on twitter, as I was keen to use it as the basis for that post. It’s been a difficult year, once again due to the pandemic, but my year in genealogy has been pretty fabulous.

Below are the prompts from Jill’s geneameme and my replies. If you’d like to join in, click on the link to Geniaus post, and follow her instructions. Do let me know if you are going to post a reply as I’d love to read it. Big thanks to Jill for all her hard work in providing her geneamemes. They always give me great inspiration.

1. I got the most joy from #ANZAncestryTime discussions on Twitter, every Tuesday night at 7pm AEST. I was very pleased when I was asked to moderate and it has become a highlight of my life in genealogy.

2. The Covid situation gave me an opportunity to digitise my family history files and photos. Having covid leave, also enabled me to have time to start researching thoroughly instead of in small time bites.

3. I managed to attend a face to face event at….. I didn’t attend any face to face events in 2020, but I almost managed to attend the annual general meeting of our local family history society. Unfortunately, lockdown was called the day before it was scheduled, so it was cancelled. I had intended to join the society, so was quite disappointed.

4. My main focus this year was on writing family stories and publishing them on the blog. I’m really keen to get my stories published so that they survive for any future researchers. I have nobody to take on my research so putting the stories and documents online is my way of ensuring that it survives for future researchers.

5. A new piece of technology or skill I mastered was indexing old records. For the past six months I’ve been indexing the Crown Counsel Proceedure Books for Scottish Indexes. This is my small way of paying back for the free Scottish Indexes virtual conferences that have been held about every two months, for two years now, during the pandemic.

6. A geneasurprise I received was being contacted via the blog, by two cousins from unrelated family lines, who were previously unknown to me. We have formed a collaboration which is helping us all further our research and develop unexpected friendships.

7. My 2021 social media post that I was particularly proud of was any one of my Blogging April A-Z Challenge posts. I do very little on social media and am a bit hit and miss with it. During the challenge, I remembered to promote my post on Twitter and the Challenge Facebook page every day.

8.  A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed was British Food by Colin Spencer, covering the history of British Food for over one thousand years. It’s quite a large book, which I needed to read quickly as I was pressed for time. I plan to read it again in early 2022. This book was fascinating, so I feel the need to dive into it again when I have more time to soak up all the information it contains about the food our ancestors would have been eating, and the way it was prepared.

9. I was impressed by RootsTech 2021 which this year was virtual and free. The sessions being available all year, meant that I was able to watch them at my leisure during the year. There were so many sessions that they have kept me going all year. I’m really looking forward to the next Rootstech in February 2022, and plan to keep my calendar free so that I can soak it all up, as if I was there in person at Salt Lake City. Well almost.

10.  A great journal or newspaper article I found was found on Trove. The article reported the death in W.A. of a family member from a family line that I hadn’t yet researched. This article led me to to uncover unknown information about the deceased and other members of his family, and set me off on a most enjoyable tangent.

11. I got the most value from this subscription This year I took out a Find My Past Subscription for the first time for a few years. As I was researching a couple of new English lines, I felt that it would be valuable to have it for a year and it didn’t disappoint. I spent many late nights digging into their records, and plan to continue it in 2022.

12. I progressed my DNA research with……. I have to admit that another year has gone by with me doing no work at all on my DNA Matches. As I said last year…..there is always next year. I’m a little scared to get started as I can see myself going down many time consuming rabbit holes, which is not a bad thing but I’m not sure that I have the time.

13. I taught a genimate how to begin researching her family history. I loved seeing how excited she was at every find, reminding me of my own early days of researching when everything was new to me. It was actually beneficial to once again look at family history from a beginners view point.

14.  A blog post that taught me something new was a post that I published earlier in the year about Robert Jones, the brother of my 2x grandfather Joseph Henry Jones. I try to research the smaller branches in the hope the further information will be found about my ancestor. I just hadn’t got around to Robert yet, but decided it was time. In order to write the post, I needed to do quite a bit of research and did turn up new information about where my 2x great grandfather lived. Robert also turned out to have quite an interesting life, which I wasn’t expecting.

15. A newly found family member shared information about their branch of the family that I knew very little about. We are now collaborating together on this branch of the family. They also shared photos that I never expected to find.

16. I finally found MACRAE family members six feet under…… Surprisingly, they were buried in a cemetery that is less than 5 kilometres from my house. I knew that branches of this family had settled in Victoria, but I hadn’t realised that there were some that were living so close to where I live. I owe thanks to fellow family researcher, Graham Sleeth, for uncovering this piece of information and sharing it with me.

17. I splashed out and purchased a ticket to the FHF Really Useful Family History Show. My first thought was that I wouldn’t attend, as I had attended many free virtual conferences this year. Looking back at the previous year, I remembered how much I learnt from this event which is run by the Family History Federation. I’m so glad that I decided to attend as the sessions were very informative with quite a bit of information that was new to me, and other sessions being revisions. They were also fun.

18. Another positive I would like to share is that I attended all conferences held by Scottish Indexes There have now been fourteen of these free virtual events held during the pandemic. I’ve attended all fourteen and now feel much more confident when doing Scottish research. I really look forward to ‘Scottish Indexes Day’ as I call it. The next one is on 15 January and once again, I intend to be there. Click on the above link if you’d like to find out more and join me.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all my genie friends and their families a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. I hope you all have a happy and safe new year. I really appreciate everyone who has popped in during the year and hope to continue that connection in 2022.

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