Wednesday, January 1, 2014

A New Year begins!

Wow...a blog with one entry last year.  That might be a record!  However, it does not mean that I have not been actively pursuing genealogy over the past year.  I have been continuously working on my genealogy.  With today beginning the new year, I have been contemplating what goals I have for my genealogy.

My main goal is to go through, purge, and organize my paper and picture files.  I have realized over the past year that I have so many duplicates and copies of things that I need to get my files more streamlined.  It feels like an overwhelming task to me, but I will be much appreciative of it when I get it done!

I have also had a couple of major (for me) breakthroughs in the past couple of days, so am hoping to learn more this year.  One is for a great-aunt who seemingly disappeared years ago.  The last that the family knew is that she had gone home to live with her parents after my uncle died and her children were taken away from her.  I just found where her father is buried, and am hopeful that perhaps she might be buried there also...I have sent for cemetery records, and will be visiting there next month, so maybe I will be able to learn something.  Today, I found an index on Ancestry.com for Naturalization papers for my ggg-grandfather, and have sent away for copies for those.  Again, feeling quite hopeful!

My mother died in May 2012, and my father died in December 2013.  It is hard to find new leads and not be able to share them with them.  So I guess this year's searching will be dedicated to them.

Let the purging of copies begin....