Sometimes our genealogies tend to focus on the line of direct ancestors. The siblings or cousins of those direct ancestors, esp. the siblings or cousins who left no children themselves, may be ignored or forgotten. This can be true especially when using DNA to help our research. Family members who had no descendants to pass on their DNA may get little attention in our genealogy efforts.
Memorial weekend is a good time to remember and honor some of these collateral kin. In my extended family, I have found several who gave their lives in the service of their country.
June is a month when bloggers sometimes find inspiration in Father’s Day. I’m putting a slightly different spin on it this year. I decided to write about the women in my family who found themselves having to fill the role of both parents to young fatherless children.
I went through the most recent six generations and created this list of women to honor (presented here with their ahnentafel numbers).
CIDIG is back! The Central Indiana DNA Interest Group, like many organizations, has been hibernating a bit since Covid-19 burst onto the scene. (Someday our descendants–at least the ones interested in family history–will be very interested in how our day-to-day lives changed during this pandemic.) But now it seems we are beginning to emerge, and CIDIG is looking forward to spending time with everyone again!
A dear friend of mine (for more decades than I care to divulge) also happens to be a genealogist, and I found her latest blog post both touching and timely: Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes! by Sandra Maciejewski Porter.
It inspired me to choose a Ukrainian family to document here in my own blog.
Happy New Year! And happy 6-year anniversary to DNAsleuth, too!
Last month I blogged about my genealogy goals, and one is to continue this blog. But look for changes this year.
My original target was to post new content on the 1st of every month—nearly always DNA-related. I’m ready to adjust my expectations now.
For starters, I’m not going to aim for the 1st any more.
And some months I may post more than once. Other months, I may skip. I still have DNA topics I want to explore and share. (I’ve already started drafting a post about Visual Phasing. And then there’s the surprises discovered when I tested a grandchild that I think you’ll find a little amazing!)
But I may post more often about genealogy that doesn’t involve biology, too. Meanwhile, the calendar in the sidebar of upcoming Central Indiana DNA Interest Group programs should still be current.
But sometimes I wish they had labeled those old photos better, taken more pictures, left behind letters or diaries…. Wouldn’t those be treasures?
This month, it occurs to me to blog about genealogy for present and future generations. After all, I want to make memories with the family that’s here and now too. And I realize that I might do future generations a favor by preserving those memories.
So, in October 2021 (after multiple Covid delays), our family finally took a long-awaited trip together to Sedona, Arizona. Here are my five grandkids on Submarine Rock at the end of the Broken Arrow Trail.
Raymont cousins, Sedona AZ, Oct 2021, photo by Ann Raymont
It’s the genealogist in me that’s now considering how to produce something tangible and lasting. A photo book with narrative text that tells our story? A video or slideshow, with audio? Will a digitized version of whatever make it more accessible in years to come? Is there some way to engage the grandkids in the creation?
Like our ancestors, we are more than just birth, marriage, and death dates and places. While you’re trying to recapture your ancestors’ stories, don’t forget to create (and preserve) your own! (And please, feel free to tell me about how you chose to do it!)
Many of us use DNA for clues in our genealogy. A DNA match may connect us to a cousin or a location where sources exist with the answer to our kinship mystery. Yay! But what about those times when we don’t find a document with the direct evidence; maybe we find more pieces to the puzzle, and we want to use the DNA as part of the solution. If you ever want to say that you’re confident that A is the child of B because of one or more DNA matches, I’ve got a website recommendation for you!
There are a lot of reasons to be glad 2020 is in our rear-view mirror now, but there were some things to celebrate too. Every January I like to look over how I did on my genealogy/DNA goals for the past year. Here are my top 3 DNA achievements for 2020.
DNAsleuth 