Review of 2017 and Goals for 2018

2017 turned out to be an amazing year for my genealogy pursuits.  I have been working (usually daily in some capacity) on my genealogy since about 1995.  I am constantly amazed at the new findings out there, especially as access to old records open up.

I felt like I did a good job keeping up with the Ancestry hints.  They can get very overwhelming if one isn't vigilant on that.

I had two very major breakthroughs this year.  As stated, I have been working on genealogy for over twenty years.  And one of the very most elusive challenges has been trying to locate my great-uncle's children.  The family lived about four hours away from us. Oddly, the children are younger than I am (my mother's uncle was only seven years older than her).  The children's father died in 1963 and there was only sporadic contact with them over the next few years.  Once I started working on genealogy, my mother continued to ask if I could find them.  I never could.

Then in the middle of last March, out of the blue, I received an Ancestry message from the oldest daughter, my first cousin one time removed.  She had been on Ancestry and found my family tree. It has been wonderful catching up with her and sharing with her over the past few months.  I've been able to share pictures with her, and even some of her father's letters from WWII.  I hope to be able to visit with her in 2018.

The other breakthrough was finding the will of Luke Tippitt as I have written about on this blog.  It took some tenacious work, but I did it!  And it has opened up some other clues for the Tippitt family, although so far, I haven't been able to successfully follow up on them.  But the discovery was from a hint on Ancestry, where old records were open for access.

My goals for 2018?  I am going to participate in the #52Ancestor Challenge again this year.  I did it a couple of years ago and it was very helpful in getting me to dig deeper for records and information, so I am hoping that I can stick with it!  It is a lot of work.  I have begun a genealogy bullet journal to help me with my genealogy pursuits.  It will be interesting to see if I find it helpful or burdensome!