Friday, August 25, 2017

Blogiversary #9: Fewer Brickwalls, More DNA and Facebook Connections

What a year 2017 has been (and it's not over)! Nine years ago, when I first began blogging about my genealogy adventures, I knew the names of only four of the eleven people in this photo from my parents' wedding album. Earlier this year, thanks to Mom's address book and Cousin Ira's cache of letters, I smashed a brickwall blocking me from researching Grandpa Isaac Burk. Now I have a new set of friendly cousins and the names of all the people in this photo. And more info about my father's father's father, Elias Solomon Birk

This was DNA year for me. Thanks to "known" cousins on both sides of the family who kindly agreed to test, I have a lot more "probable" cousins (we're still investigating our connections). It was especially helpful and motivating to meet DNA experts at the IAJGS, where I gave my talk on Planning a Future for Your Family's Past. I also attended DNA sessions at NERGC, where I spoke on the same "planning a future" topic. (For a calendar of my upcoming presentations, please see the masthead tab above.)
Future genealogy: Using a pinhole viewer on Eclipse Day

This year will go down in American history for the unique solar eclipse that swept the nation . . . for my genealogical journey, it will be remembered as the year I created detailed family memory booklets for my husband's Wood-Slatter tree and his McClure-Steiner tree. (For sample pages, see my blog post here.)

My Facebook genealogy persona Benjamin McClure (memorialized on family T-shirts) has had a wonderful time making new genealogy friends and both posting questions and answering queries. Benji is also active on Pinterest. I really appreciate how many people are very generous with their knowledge and take the time to help solve family history mysteries via social media!

Plus I got to meet many genealogy bloggers in person at conferences this year. It was wonderful to say hello and get acquainted without a keyboard for a change.

Thank you to my relatives and readers for checking out my posts, leaving comments, and sharing ideas. Looking forward to Blogiversary #10 next year!

12 comments:

  1. Congratulations on 9 years, Marian. Here's to many more years of research and blogging about it, and all good genealogy-related things.

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  2. Nancy, thanks for your good wishes!

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  3. Happy Blogiversary and I'm so glad I got to meet you this year! Hope to see you sometime soon.

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  4. Happy Blog Anniversary! I enjoy reading your blog & hope it goes for many more years!

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  5. Thanks for helping me celebrate, Elizabeth! It was fun to meet you and I'm looking forward to getting together at other gen conferences.

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  6. Colleen, I appreciate your anniversary wishes and I have lots of ideas for blog posts in the coming months. Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  7. Congratulations, Marian. What a great year. We made a cereal-box viewer, too, but I think we're going to try to catch the next one in the band of totality with glasses! I hope to finally start going to conferences next year, hope we get to meet in person soon!

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  8. Hi Anna, thank you so much for your good wishes. It would be great to connect in person!

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  9. Wow! 9 years, Marian, congratulations. And, best wishes for year 10.

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  10. Thank you so much, Dara, for your nice comment. I'm looking forward to year 10 with more breakthroughs and family history discoveries!

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  11. I'm woefully behind in blog-reading so I missed the celebration. Happy 9 and here's to many MANY more!

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  12. Wendy, your blogiversary wishes are welcome at any time! Thanks for reading and leaving a note for me.

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