Relaxing at the lake over Christmas and New Year provided an ideal opportunity to reflect on my family history research activity in 2021 and think about what my broad focus will be in 2022.
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| Lake Taupo, New Zealand - 1 January 2022 |
In broad terms, my focus for 2022 will not differ dramatically from 2021. In addition, to the outward looking stuff (learning experiences via webinars etc., engaging with others in genealogy forums and other collaborative activity, etc.), my three broad areas of focus will continue (in no particular order) to be:
- Tree Building
- Narrative Writing
- Beyond Kin Research
Tree Building
During 2021, I have been predominantly focused on filling in the gaps in my and my husband's trees up to 4th Great Grandparent level. For example, I wrote about my search for my 2nd Great Grandmother, Nancy, in my 26 October 2021 post So, Just Who Is Nancy?
The 'Ancestral Trees' Function at DNA Painter has a 'Tree Completeness' Feature[1]. This is a really useful feature for being able to see, 'at a glance', where the gaps are generation by generation.
As the view below of my tree's completeness shows, I have 9 3rd Great Grandparent's to find and 33 4th Great Grandparent's to find if I am to fill the gaps up to 4th Great Grandparent level. Also, while the view of tree completeness below shows that I have found 16/16 2nd Great Grandprarents, for 2 of them, I only have their first names so, more work to be done there too.
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Filling in these gaps will continue to be my main tree building focus for 2022. I may never find some of these people. Much of my difficulty in trying to fill these gaps is lack of documentary evidence. DNA evidence isn't enough on its own but it certainly helps to steer me in the right direction. I need to continue searching for documentary evidence in conjunction with continued analysis of DNA data. If I can make some progress in finding some of these missing ancestors during 2022, even one or two of them, it will be a step forward!
While that is my main tree building focus, I may well stray beyond that if something interesting turns up further back in the tree.
Narrative Writing
Again in 2022, this will be a continuation of what I have already been doing, with varying degrees of success, in 2020 and 2021. I hope to get better at it with practice.
Some narratives are biographical in nature and entail looking at a known ancestor in more depth. These narratives provide an opportunity to undertake an evidence stocktake and ask the questions: What do I really know? What do I think I know but don't yet have sufficient evidence for? and What do I need to investigate further to fill in the gaps? They also provide an opportunity to research a little around an ancestor to try to understand them better in the context of their own time and space. This can be a really useful exercise.
In the main, I have focused these sorts of narratives on ancestors of relatively recent generations. Some narratives have been prompted by item(s) we have relating to an ancestor such as medals - Remembering Trevor Greek Lane (posted 10 July 2021) and postcards - Wartime Correspondence from Bill to Winnie (posted 4 December 2021). Others have been prompted by an oral family history story such as Left Behind In Dunedin - Emma's Story (posted 13 January 2021).
Not all narratives are necessarily biographical though. Some narratives record a personal memory or oral family history without biographical detail because recording them is important to preserving them. Some focus on a particular event in the absence of biographical detail. One narrative I particular enjoyed writing in 2021 was about an incident that my 9th Great Grandparents, James Kirk and his wife Deborah, experienced as Rogues, Vagabonds & Sturdy Beggars (posted 1 July 2021). I know very little about James and Deborah but the event sparked my interest.
Some narratives are more akin to case studies such as my 12 August 2021 post Hypothesis, Speculation and Conjecture: My Ray-Rea Connection
Beyond Kin Research
As I have written previously[2], The Beyond Kin Project conceived by Donna Cox Baker and Frazine K. Taylor in 2016 is:
a way to encourage and facilitate the documentation of enslaved populations, particularly by recruiting the resources and efforts of the descendants of slaveholders.
My paternal ancestry is from the Southern States of America so it is not surprising that I have slaveholder ancestors. Nor is it surprising that I have a number of DNA matches who descend from enslaved people. Using the Beyond Kin methodology for documenting slaveholder/enslaved person connections, I have been gradually documenting any information I come across in relation to enslaved people associated with my ancestors.
I initially did this within my main family tree on Ancestry. However, during 2021, I made the decision to separate my Beyond Kin branches from my main tree and give them a dedicated Beyond Kin project tree of their own. After transferring the data I already had, I didn't spend as much time on adding to the tree that I would have liked to. I hope to find more time for this in 2022.
Notes
[1] Ancestral Trees Function - Tree Completeness via DNAPainter (Website] Accessed 3 January 2022.
[2] See Jane Chapman, 'The Enslaved People associated with Richard Lang and Family' (posted 8 March 2020) BJNL's Genealogy [Blog]
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