Happy 2018!
Did you know we get a blue moon this month? I just love the idea of that. I'm fighting the temptation to go looking for who in our tree might have seen one before (though no promises over whether or not they were interested).
2017 was a very big year at our end (and it somehow feels so long ago already) and pretty much nothing went as it should have, which makes for some strong memories, but in all honesty, I'm hoping this year's adventures are ...shall we say 'different'?
On Sunday 5th February we had trouble reaching Tof's Mum for our usual Sunday check-in with her. In the end the local sapeurs undertook a welfare check and established that in fact her doctor had admitted her first to the local clinic and then the hospital on the Saturday. Ironically, after having had to make a forced entry via the first floor living room window and searching the house, they found a note on her dining table asking the doctor to please inform us 'or else he will call the fire brigade who will come and break my windows getting in'. We were able to establish contact with the hospital and started to make plans to go out to her in a few days when they anticipated discharging her home.
The following afternoon we checked in with her hospital doctor who had been running tests. He wanted to run another the following day before advising on when we should come.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. Within an hour he rang us back to explain that she had suddenly got very much worse and had died at 18.20 local time. He and a nurse had been with her at the end.
We spent most of February in France dealing with the funeral and related administrative things. It was difficult of course, but to be among the family is always a special treat, so that was nice.
Once we were home and settled, it was downhill all the way to our wedding in the summer.
Even with doing virtually all of it ourselves (and with the help of the family and our amazing Best Man, Best Woman and her lovely hubby), as well as taking the first two weeks of August off from everything, we just barely made it by the skin of our teeth (and that's before my darling husband got a spontaneous nosebleed requiring an ambulance in the early hours of the morning of our wedding day).
We were gifted a two-nights honeymoon in Connemara by some lovely friends of the family and that was a very welcome break and ensured that we did see something of the end of summer - and we got to see the sea!
We had hoped that the tail end of 2017 would be calmer. Tof had booked himself onto some continuing professional development training as he wasn't feeling up to much work-wise (to say nothing of him going down with Shingles for his first time in late September) and we thought that was that, but sadly his brother Fabrice passed away unexpectedly on Sunday 8th October. Having his shingles Tof was contagious at that point, so unfortunately we were not able to go out for the funeral.
In late November and into December we started to get the first results in from the DNA tests that a group of family members took. We're really enjoying the whole voyage of discovery and seeing where it takes us.
To date, Tof's has been the most astounding. Previous to the big MyHeritage update of a couple of weeks ago, he had exactly four matches. The very first one we looked into, we found a wonderful new cousin (of some sort) in lovely Vito. Our first person of interest is his Great Grandmother Rosina CARBONARO, who was born Rosina LOMBARDI. Based on her date of birth, she could well be a sibling of our brick wall Genaro LOMBARDI b. somewhere around 1880 (roughly). He's giving us some trouble though as it seems that he may have moved from somewhere else to Minervino Murge to be with Francesca CATALANO after they were married (there seems to be no record for that marriage in Minervino Murge), so until we can locate their marriage lines, we're a bit stuck there.
We are also slowly getting to grips with GEDmatch and are considering Promethease.
We closed out the year with a visit to my Mum's for the big double birthday and a family Christmas.
There were some cool things too last year. I was taken on as a volunteer helper in a few places including the Thursday Rangers and Adoption Angels team over at Wikitree and I've really loved meeting everyone at the British Isles Facebook group (among the far too many groups I joined, but then genealogy's never one for moderation) and even discovering I'm related to some of them!
We took part in a really fun graveyard photography weekend for FindAGrave (highly recommend it as a great activity that all the family could join in on). I also recently got to help with tracing two WWI airmen for two ladies working on a book project in Australia and am providing genealogy and family history support for a commemorative arts installation in Devon later this year.
We also feel that we're very close to reuniting the Sgt White photograph with his family. We're now as sure as we can be that it was Sgt White of the RAF, as opposed to the man from the Royal Signallers. We continue to look for modern relations (he had no children and his widow seems not to have married again).
We also acquired two new books this year. One was the personal book based on my Grandad's life story that I showed you a few weeks ago. The other one I picked up on the recommendation of a lady at the National Archives in Dublin, who called it "the Bible for Irish Genealogy". It's called 'Tracing Your Irish Ancestors' by John Grenham and while I'm taking it at a slow plod to read through, I find myself referencing it so often that it now lives within arm's reach of my desk.
In 2017 I acquired my first ever paying genealogy customers. Largely through Fiverr, but I also have one client on a longer-term private commission on a really cool project which I can't say much about at this stage, but it has me constantly challenged, baffled and sometimes incredibly excitable with some downwards genealogy from certain members of C19th Prussian nobility.
Last but not least, as of yesterday, I'm a member of the GeneabloggersTRIBE and I could not be prouder of that achievement. Thanks again to them for all their constant hard work in support of us all.
2017 Target:
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2018 and beyond...
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I did get a blog post in for January & in fact across the year I got 5 posts in, so that was an improvement of nearly 200% so I'm impressed with that all things considered
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I have 2 posts so far in January (plus this one), so I'm claiming that as progress.
I definitely want to keep to the one a month challenge this year, but I'm really hoping to actually hit all 12 this year.
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HUGE amounts of manual data entry to cope with my GEDcom not playing on various platforms (or arguing with others' formats - I'm looking at you wikitree)
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Yeah. That's a continued work in progress. It's a real challenge to fit in the time for it, but I am finding it works as an excellent check system for those daft little mistakes we all make and don't necessarily notice straight away. At least that's what I tell myself...
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I was (and am) making some slow progress with wikitree, but there was also RootsMagic, GenesReunited, Family Tree Circles, GeneaWiki and various other places).
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I'm still going on some of that. I do try to keep to the same handle across platforms (dlaity) so if you do see something on a mutual relative (or don't but think I might have it), definitely give me a yell and I'll try and help you out.
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Update the paper tree when all the online ones are fixed
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In all honesty, I never got to work on our paper tree at all last year. Hopefully later this summer?
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Remember that nice mounting system for the paper tree that I dreamt up? I had three possible methods to make it happen:
* I get cast in something that makes serious money
* I find a craft or genealogy customer prepared to pay me in a custom size piece of perspex
* I meet an art or woodwork student prepared to take on the challenge as part of their coursework.
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I'm adding two new ideas to the 'how to make it happen' list:
* Regain confidence with woodworking enough to make my own
* Find and take some training in picture framing.
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Finish off my four generations project for my licensing exam. - Shooting for sitting the May level 1 exam if at all possible.
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With the way last year turned out, I didn't manage to get that all sorted (not that I'd have had the head-space to do a good job of it anyway). I did get it to somewhere between half and two-thirds written though, so I'm going to aim for the August sitting this year.
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I wanted to create something else crafty (on top of my shawl pattern from the year before) and I wanted to start a book on Bad Billy.
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I did start an outline on the book for Bad Billy, but it isn't really going as I'd like it too, so it keeps being sent to time out.
I'm also frustrated by trying to work out if I can get a look at the Royal pardon for some kind of capital offence (hanging was the original sentence) that Billy was given shortly before his transportation.
I also still can't resolve the ridiculously tight period between the trail going cold in Port Jackson and him being back in the West Midlands getting married.
NEW: Try to work out how Tof and Vito connect by trying to work out how Rosina and Genaro connect.
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What are your genealogy targets for 2018?
