January review of my genealogical work this month

It's been a busy month here genealogically-speaking!

This month I have been working on purging my paper files, which I have been using/keeping since I began my genealogy in about 1994.  I have periodically purged them, but when I was unable to close the file cabinet, I knew it was time to go at it again.   I finished up the work today and am proud to say that the file cabinet door is closing easily once again! It's an important thing to do for a couple or reasons: 1) in almost all cases, it is no longer necessary to have paper copies of census readings, or multiple copies of obituaries, etc., as long as they have been incorporated into your database, and 2) each time I go through paperwork, I find some new clues or things to check out.  It's a good feeling to have it completed! I also have gone through the few records that were not in my database and have updated the database with those records. I have two letters to be written for additional information found in the records.

This past month I did some research for two other people.  I always find that very rewarding...I love helping others learn about their history! And, hopefully, they find it helpful and interesting.

I have done some more research on the Kennison/Kinnison family and have put my notes in Evernote.  I find Evernote a great place for my working notes.  Now if I could just find the connections I am looking for!

And I have done well keeping up with the Ancestry.com hints for my tree this month.  Today, the end of the month, I was going through what hints were there and while looking at the husband (John Reece) of my great-great grandfather's sister, Nancy Ferrel, I found that she had two sons born to her before she died in 1851. She and John had married in 1845, and I have not found the family in the 1850 census.  But while looking at the 1860 census for John and his new wife Elizabeth, I realized that there were two sons there who were born before Nancy died.  This was exciting for me, and, hopefully, I will be able to find out more about the sons!

I am also doing the FamilySearch #52 Stories Project where a question a week is asked and you write about it.  I'm using a journal and I have gotten through the first five weeks, so that's a start. The questions for January were about Goals and Achievements.