A new season

It has been a long time since I have updated this blog! For a couple of reasons I haven't worked on genealogy much in the last year or so. I am to the point in my research where the branches are long, far apart, and harder to make a meaningful connection with. It's not that I care less about learning about my more distant relatives, I just found so much enjoyment about uncovering details about the ones closer in. It was also easier to keep everyone organized at that level.

That being said, the last year has been a busy one for me and I am hoping that I can get back into this hobby (well, really a love) of mine!

I got married last summer which means I have a whole new family history to explore. My father-in-law also shares a great interest in genealogy and has been quite active in working on his tree. He emails my husband little interesting tidbits every few days or so. I also had the opportunity to hear a pretty detailed verbal history of his family and their origins - which I quite enjoyed.

So we will see where this goes. :o)

The thought process of figuring out what I wanted to do with my name after getting married was greatly influenced by all of this research I have done. Women so easily become 'dead ends' when you can't figure out what their maiden name was. So I decided to take my husband's last name (hyphenating our particular names really sounded ridiculous, ha!) and figured out how to still keep my first, middle, and maiden name all in my official/legal name. My new SS card and driver's license both arrived this week and I am pleased with how it all looks.

As of today I have 1777 people on my tree and 2823 records attached to them. 1422 of those people have additional 5690 hints ready for viewing! Wowzers.

In the time since I last wrote my dad and one of my uncles both took a 23andMe DNA test. It was really interesting to see the DNA connections between each of them and me and also what they share (and don't). This of course also provided me with access to the X chromosome side of me.