A Year In The Life Of A Genie 2022

Here we are into the first week of February, and I haven’t even posted about my year as a genie in 2022. As they say, it’s better late than never.

I started 2022 semi retired, but by the end of the year, I was back working almost full time hours. Two weeks ago, I started a new full time position, with the same company. So much for retirement! Being semi retired for a short time, made me realise that I’m not yet ready for retirement, so I’m happy to be back in the work force full time, and feel very grateful to my employers for having faith in me to the job, at age 69.

The downside to working full time is that I will have less time for my family history. I’m going to have to carefully prioritise my time to ensure that I still get to do the fun things that I want to do.

Looking back to 2022

RootsTech 2023: Once again this conference was outstanding. Being virtual and free I was able to attend, and am still ocassionally watching sessions that I saved for later.

AFFHO Congress: The biggest highlight of 2022, was definitely the AFFHO Genealogy conference at Norfolk Island, in early August. I spent a week on the island, so managed to be a tourist as well as attend this really informative conference. After the conference, I spent a week at Noosa with my son and my three grandsons. I hadn’t seen them for almost three years due to the pandemic, so it was a special time.

Here’s a link to my post about my time at Norfolk Island: Norfolk Island

Historic Norfolk Island Cemetery

Scottish Indexes Conferences: The free Scottish Indexes conferences held on Zoom, continued in 2022. There were four conferences held in 2022, with all having sessions on very interesting topics. I learnt a huge amount from each one.

#ANZAncestryTime: The Twitter discussion that has been held monthly on Tuesday nights has been lots of fun. This discussion group started during covid, when many of us were in lockdown. Now that life is getting back to normal, we have decided to discontinue in 2023. I have enjoyed every moment that I’ve moderated and participated in, and have made many new friends in the world of genealogy.

Legacy Webinars: I have a subscription to access the Legacy Webinars. At just $50 for a year, I consider it very worthwhile, as there are a huge amount of webinars available on many topics. There are so many that I’m sure I would never have time to watch them all. These webinars are a great way to stay up to date with what’s happening in the world of genealogy.

Blogging April AtoZ Challenge: I participated in this blogging challenge for the eighth time in 2022, with my theme, once again, being family stories. This challenge is to publish a post every day in April, except Sundays, from A-Z. I first joined this challenge in 2015, and enjoyed it so much that I’ve been back every year since. My theme in 2022 was family stories. I posted about the life of an ancestor every day except Sunday, increasing the number of family stories available here on the blog.

One Place Study: I’ve been doing my One Place Study of Axedale for a few years now. I have no family history in the area, but started my one place study due to the huge general interest I had in the area. Recently, we moved away from the Axedale area, which would have made studying this area, more difficult. Fortunately, I have found someone who will take on this One Place Study and also the blog Axedale Then and Now. I am very keen to start another OPS, this time in an area where my ancestors lived. I have a couple of ideas in mind, but haven’t decided as yet. I’m tossing up between a place of my family in Victoria, Australia and another in Scotland.

Connection: I have said many times that one of the joys of blogging is the connections that are made. I have met many cousins from around the world including Mary from England. During 2022, it has been a joy to collaborate with Mary on furthering the research of our Waters family line. Through her, I was able to re-connect with another family researcher, Graham, after many having lost contact many yers ago. I am indebted to Graham for sharing his very indepth research with me and for his continuing collaboration. With Graham’s permission, I am trying to post as much of his research as possible onto the blog, so that it is preserved. This blog is archived in the National Archives, enabling it to be available on line into the future. Collaboration with fellow family historian Graham, has also continued this year, on the Morison family.

Research: I’ve done more research in 2022 than in other recent years. the family stories published on the blog have required research to fill in the many gaps, and this was my research focus in 2022.

Transcribing: In 2021, I volunteered to transcribe records for Scottish Indexes. My main reason for doing this was as a thank you for the free conferences that they provide. I have occasionally also made a small monetary donation, as I would love these conferences to continue. I enjoyed transcribing the records which were a great learning experience. I became much better able to read 18th and 19th century writing, due to transcribing these documents.. When I broke my arm, I had to stop for a while and due to holidays and moving, wasn’t able to get back to it.

Looking forward to 2023

Conferences: In 2023, I will be attending RootsTech, once again virtually, from home. I’m not sure of other conferences yet, but I’m looking forward to hearing about any that are coming up. I will continue attending Society of Genealogist and Legacy Webinars.

Scottish Indexes held their first conference for 2023 in January, and the next is scheduled for 15 April 2023.

Blogging April AtoZ Challenge: I am hoping to participate in the Challenge in 2023. I have begun drafting posts but I’m very much behind where I’d like to be. If I’m not able to catch up and be ready by April 1, I may have to give it a miss this year. I haven’t decided about this yet.

Research

Any research done during this year has been done so that family stories can be written. Most of my research time has been used to fill in the gaps of research done previously. At the beginning of 2022, I promised myself that a focus of research would be DNA, I knew that to be able to do that, I would need to learn more about DNA and that was my plan. Unfortunately that well intentioned plan just didn’t happen This will still appear on the list of things to do in 2023.

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