Accentuate the Positive 2024

Jill Ball, who blogs as GeniAus, has a blog prompt she posts in the new year, urging us to look back on the old year's genealogical research and blog about the positive experiences we had in that endeavor.  She calls it "Accentuate the Positive."  She has a series of questions we are to answer.  We can leave out the questions that don't apply to us; I have done so, and renumbered the questions I list and answer here.

" 1.  I was the recipient of  genearosity from Catherine Johnson, Director of the Nimitz Library at the U.S. Naval Academy.  My father died in 1954, and he was memorialized by my mother's essay on him which appeared in a "mug book" published by members of the Naval Academy Class of 1934, of which my father was a member.  The book was a treasure to me.  In about 1964, my mom and I moved into rooms in a house owned by a co-worker of my mom's.  Another woman had the garage apartment, which was a ground-floor addition.  On the outside of the garage (a carport, really) were storage compartments.  Mom had stored some of our belongings, including this book and other objects that had been my father's, in one of these storage compartments, secured with a padlock.  One day, I discovered that the woman occupying the garage apartment had broken the lock and thrown away all of our belongings in that compartment, because she wanted the space.  Did she ask us?  No.  I would have been glad to have put all our stuff from the compartment in my room, as I had plenty of space.  I had been looking for a copy of that book ever since -- for nearly 60 years.  I found a copy in the Nimitz Library and asked if I could get photocopies of the pages I wanted.  I could be content with that.  Ms. Johnson was kind enough to supply the photocopies.  I have since found and obtained a copy of the book!

 2. A useful record I discovered was . . . Actually, it is a collection of land records from eastern Tennessee, where my mother's maternal line settled early in this country's history.  If I can find among these records some dating from the late 1700s, I might be able to apply as a member of the First Families of Franklin lineage society, to which my friend Amanda belongs.  This society recognizes descendants of residents of an area in Tennessee that applied for statehood as the State of Franklin.  The application was not successful.

 3. A geneasurprise I received was finding out that a family that is related my mother's paternal line is also related to my father's paternal line!  I'm so southern, I'm related to myself!

  4. My 2024 post that I was particularly proud of was How I Recovered a Stolen Car.  It was a funny and great thing that happened on my way, as a college freshman, to my high school's homecoming game in the fall of 1965.

 5. Although Face to Face events have returned Zoom has allowed me to attend events I would otherwise not be able to participate in.  I am limited budgetarily by a serious illness in the family, generating a pile of medical bills.  I also cannot fly, for medical reasons.  So I can use Zoom and other computer facilities to attend conferences and webinars, and I am so grateful for that.

 6. I dipped my toes into WikiTree, and find it better, as far as a collaborative family tree goes, in that we are urged, encouraged, and even required to sign a pledge to provide good and usable source citations to what we post.  That should help lower the incidences of bad information being allowed to creep into our contributions to the tree.

 7. I connected with a historical society in one of the locations where my ancestral line spent time.

8. By dipping my toes into AI I was able to discover that it is not yet ready for prime time.  I am an AI skeptic.  I hold to an old advertising slogan:  "Mother, please!  I'd rather do it myself!"  Besides, I'm a much better writer than any AI or computer program, and as a degreed historian as well as a trained and well-educated genealogist, I'm a stickler for precise source citations.

 9. I found this presentation most useful: a three-day presentation by the New England Historic Genealogical Society on verifying your research.

 10. I got the most value from this book:  The Mayflower Migration, by Robert Charles Anderson.  I'm a Mayflower descendant, and member of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

 11. Another positive I would like:  To be able to continue finding surprises, enchantment, and fascination in my genealogy research.

 Good luck to you in your genealogy researches!

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2025 Week 1 -- Start at the Beginning

With the new year come another 52 weeks to blog on our genealogy adventures, prompted weekly by Amy Johnson Crow's long-running series, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.  The questions in this prompt are:  "Who was the first person you wanted to find when you began your genealogy journey? Was there a family member who sparked your interest, perhaps by giving you a treasure trove of genealogy 'stuff'?"

The family member who sparked this interest . . . h'mmm, let's go ahead and call it what it is: obsession . . . was my late sister-in-law, Kathy [Allred] Packard.  She was of the LDS persuasion, and my brother converted to that faith in their marriage.  She had traced things all the way back to the original immigrant, who came from Suffolk to the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, and who sparked my interest, in Amy Johnson Crow's words, and who was the focus of my budding research.  

My research, however, soon revealed that the derivative sources Kathy had depended on had errors.  I set about to investigate and, I hoped, correct the errors.  So the subsequent 40 years since have been an interesting journey.  I took courses by mail and online from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  They were offering a non-degree course of study through the Faculty for Information Studies, the virtual outlet for course offerings through the University of Toronto.  The completion of this course of study earned the participant a certificate of completion rather than a degree, as the courses were all non-credit courses.  My area of study under this program was in American Records.  The instructors for these courses are either certified genealogists or Ph.D.s in their fields.

I attended what conferences I could, what with work, family responsibilities, and an often-limited budget.  I have been able in recent years to attend webinars and conferences virtually, which is wonderful, as my travel options are limited (I can't fly due to medical issues), and a serious illness of one of our children limits our budget.

One of the exercises for one of the classes from the National Institute was to find relatives you hadn't had previous contact with.  I found out that my father's line, surname Packard, had gone into Canada from Massachusetts.  Richards Packard, my fourth-great-grandfather, fought in a couple of Massachusetts regiments in the American Revolution.  I obtained his Revolutionary War pension file and found out a great mass of information about him, and a good deal less about his wife, Sarah "Sally" Coates/Coats, including where in Canada they settled.  I placed an advertisement in the local newspaper in the area of Canada where Richards Packard had settled.  The ad was answered by a non-relative, a member of the Georgeville, Quebec, Historical Society who put me in touch with my Canadian cousins.  We corresponded for a while, but with all the sturm und drang of getting old, problems and difficulties of one sort and another, we fell out of touch.

But I learned a good deal more about my family history.  The adventure since has turned up a collateral relative from the Revolutionary period who for some reason, turned his coat and became a "rascally Tory."  I found that a family related on my mother's side is also related on my father's side, kinda like what people say here in the south where I grew up: "I'm so southern, I'm related to myself."

I'm looking forward to more discoveries.