Preview of My Year in Genealogy - 2019

2019

I'm looking forward to a busy and rewarding year of #genealogy challenges, fun, breakthroughs, and connections in 2019.

As mentioned in my previous post, I went happily down the rabbit hole of unexpected family history developments in 2018 (including the very welcome surprise of receiving Farkas Family Tree documents, related to my mother's family, to scan, index, and share with cousins).

That's why I didn't accomplish all I'd planned to do when I previewed my 2018 agenda at the end of last December, so these two items are carried over to 2019.

• I have two new family memory booklets in the planning stages. One will be about my mother (Daisy Schwartz Burk, 1919-1981) and her twin sister (Dorothy Helen Schwartz, 1919-2001). The other will be about my husband's parents (Marian McClure Wood, 1909-1983 and Edgar James Wood, 1903-1986).
• I was planning more intensive investigations of my DNA matches, beginning with color-coding matches to see who fits where in the family tree. Then I heard about DNA Painter at RootsTech2018. Still, this went to the back burner in 2018. Not sure whether DNA will be a front-burner activity in 2019, but I will follow up the most promising of my DNA matches.

Another "resolution" for 2019 is to continue my genealogy education through attendance at Family Tree Live (London) and the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference (Washington, D.C.). It will be wonderful to meet other genealogy buffs, chat with speakers, and connect with blogging/tweeting friends in person at these conferences. 

Most of all, I am excited about staying in touch with my cousins--perhaps even making contact with cousins I didn't know about. The family tree is alive with leaves representing cousins of all ages, all over the world, connected by our #familyhistory. I am so grateful for you, cousins, sharing what you know about our ancestors and forging new bonds that we hope will endure into the next generation.

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This "resolutions" post is the final #52Ancestors challenge for 2018. As always, thank you to Amy Johnson Crow for a year of thought-provoking prompts. 

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - New Year's traditions and resolutions

Happy new year! First, a couple of resolutions for 2011's genealogy projects:

• Learn all about my new Mac FTM software and move my files from the old PC version to the Mac. 2022 update: Switched to RootsMagic for Mac.
• Keep entering info and citing sources (this is one of my weak spots--I love to solve genealogy mysteries but don't find it anywhere near as much fun to write things up).
• Label more of the family photos that I protected in individual sleeves last year.
• Keep blogging as cousin bait! Can't wait to meet my newly found cousins this spring.

Now for traditions. Whenever my father and his brother and brothers-in-law got together (which might have been on New Year's Day but also one or two other holidays), they played pinochle. I still have the two-deck card set they used. Although I never understood the game, I know they were expert and enthusiastic about playing. So at the table would be my father, Harold Burk; his brother, Sidney Burk; and his brothers-in-law, Charles Lang (married to my aunt Millie) and David Bourstein (married to my aunt Miriam). Lots of laughter but also intense concentration.

The New Year's Eve I most vividly remember was when I was 17 and went to Times Square with my boyfriend, my closest girlfriend, and her boyfriend. Maybe we took the subway (who remembers? It was that long ago), or perhaps one of the guys drove us all from the Bronx. I remember the crowds and excitement, the cold, and the jubilation when the ball dropped at midnight. We all counted along (yes, just like on TV) and kissed at the stroke of the new year. Once was enough. I can say "been there, done that."

My husband's family had a quieter New Year's Eve in Cleveland Heights, because his father Edgar J. Wood always had a gig playing in a band that evening. Insurance adjuster by day, Ed was a professional piano player on the weekends and was booked for New Year's Eve by October every year. Photo above shows him in one of the college bands he joined while at Tufts. He and his friends worked their way across the Atlantic and back by playing on cruise ships, then picked up gigs in Europe to cover room and board for the summer between semesters.

May the new year bring you many family tree discoveries and reunions with long-lost relatives.

Resolutions for 2010

My top 3 genealogy resolutions for 2010 are below. What are your resolutions? Whatever they are, happy new year! 2022 update: I've gotten much better at recording my discoveries by adding to multiple online trees and writing family histories, as well as bite-sized biographies of ancestors. 

1. Document my relatives and their movements. I'm about 12 mos behind in writing down what I've learned. Instead of throwing slips of paper into the files for each family in my tree, I need to slow down and document details promptly.
2. Recheck. New info and reinterpreted details are coming online all the time. One cousin has found new info (in Hungarian, from 1909) that was never before available, info that might shed new light on our ancestors' lives and motivations. So this resolution is to review what I think I know, look for more details, and keep looking for info on distant relatives and ancestors I know very little about.
3. Communicate, communicate, communicate. In the past two years, I've been lucky enough to connect (or reconnect) with a lot of cousins. I want to keep those family connections alive in 2010, not just for genealogy but because I want my cousins to be part of my life.