Genealogy and Hectic Life

Hi Everyone out there

As you can see, I've been posting today. I have done a small amount of posting prior to this but life has been turned upside down for us here and gotten very busy.

During the middle of the year, hubby's family had a bit of a drama which we are 'helping' out with still. However, life is now starting to calm down and I can and have gotten back into genealogy a bit with:

• finishing writing up a draft of documents of my grandmother's life in more detail than what I've put on the blog. This is so the family has really good information and basis for my information I've used. Hopefully my father thinks I've done this part well enough to give it a thumbs up. Soon I'll have to start part 2 of my grandmother's life.
• helping a cousin understand some of the timeline around our grandparents and parents' lives. 
• helping the same cousin (as above) start with a great basis on relatives in Minnesota and then Belgium. 
• helping with a community Find A Grave outing with taking pictures at a cemetery and uploading them.

These were on top of looking for a job and 'helping' hubby's family, and keeping 3 Facebook Group pages going and keeping in contact with all of the different cousins I've stayed in contact with, and posting on this blog every now and then. As you can see, I've been a bit busy. *grin*

I do keep up with things, so if you have any hints, tips or anything else you want to suggest to do with the blog or searching, please let me know!

Cheers!

Reflect on your geneayear 2016

This year was a bit different as we've been 'helping' out my husband's family deal with some issues. This affected my genealogy research along with looking for employment. Anyhow, I was able to feed my genealogy bug over 3 1/2 days while we had a huge break. However, starting tomorrow, the bug has to be put back on its leash.

Anyhow, before that happens, I figure to look back at 2016 and to the research I've done and see how I've gone this year.

Remember to Accentuate the Positive - which is hard for me to do this year. Its been a hard year for me.

1.  An elusive ancestor I found was - the group of Gauquie's from Minnesota. I knew they were there a few years ago, but it wasn't until recently I could put them together with some meaning.

2.  A precious family photo I found was - A picture of my great grandparent's Annie and Jules Gauquie's wedding certificate. I've been looking for years for it.

3.  An ancestor's grave I found was... well this is a different way of 'finding' it. I've been looking for my grandmother's grave for YEARS. This past weekend I was told someone within the family had visited her grave in the past year or so. I was starting to doubt it existed, but now I know it does. *happy dance*

4.  An important vital record I found was again my great grandparent's Annie and Jules Gauquie's wedding certificate.

5.  A newly found family member shared there was a rift between the groups in Minnesota which I didn't know about at all.

6.  A geneasurprise I received was finding out one of the Gauquie relatives was actually reading my Facebook group posts and I could say hello. :)

7.   My 2016 blog post that I was particularly proud of was - not much as I haven't been writing as I have been due to the helping out of hubby's family.

8. A social media tool I enjoyed using for genealogy was probably Facebook. Its nice and easy for keeping in contact with those relatives. A few other relatives and I have tried to use Skype but didn't work so good.

9. I taught a friend what the WWII registration draft cards were for and why they were used.

10. A great repository/archive/library I visited was Victorian State Library for hubby's research on his family and Ned Kelly. I loved some of the things I saw in the huge display they had. Too bad our nephew was with us and started to have a meltdown in the middle of it. *fun*

11. It was exciting to finally "meet" a distant Gauquie relative named Paul. Also, my adopted grandfather Gardner (Grandpa Charlie) and finally met and friended his granddaughter.
 
12. Another positive I would like to share is ... to never give up, ask questions and share! Because of his my cousins and I are slowly putting what happened to my maternal grandparents, and in turn our own parents, life stories together.

Suggested topic for post by GeniAus blog http//geniaus.blogspot.com

Family Tree Christmas Tree

GeniAus had asked who would help create Christmas tree with her full of relatives. I decided, among my many other responsibilities this year, to give it a try anyway.

Like GeniAus, I created mine in Excel and then went from there. 

A post first appeared on the GeniAus blog http//geniaus.blogspot.com about this topic.

Merry Christmas

 I don't think its come out that bad really!

And Happy New Year!  

Here's to hoping everyone stays safe and healthy over the holiday period!

A Genetic Geneameme in response to a post on GeniAus

Apparently on Facebook is a Geneameme created by The Genetic Genealogist, Blaine Bettinger. People usually post it on Facebook, but I'm posting my response here.

1. First person you DNA tested? My hubby tested first.

 
2. What was your own first test? FTDNA FamilyFinder

3. Year you took your first test? 2014 -  I think.

4. What was your most recent test? Well I paid for my father MtDNA test to be done.

5. Have you done full mtDNA genome? My father has but not myself.

6. What is your mtDNA Haplogroup? Like I said, I haven't tested by my father has - Haplogroup H11a and

 HVR1: 16188.1C, 16293G, 16311C
HVR2: 195C, 263G, 309.1C, 309.2C, 315.1C
Coding Region: 750G, 961G, 1438G, 4769G, 5585A, 8448C, 8860G, 13759A, 15326G

 

7. Any exact mtDNA matches? Not yet

8. Max Y-DNA markers you/male relative tested? 0 not tested - yet

9. What is your father’s Y-DNA Haplogroup? Dunno not tested

10. Any exact Y-DNA matches? Not yet

11. Tested at all of the Big 3 Companies? FTDNA

12. Have you had a whole-genome test?  No

13. About how many tests do you control/administer? 2 - myself and father

14. Do you use GEDmatch? Not really but have uploaded to them.

15. Favorite GEDmatch tool? Nothing really - still confused.

16. Were you able to test any of your parents? Yes, my father

17. Were you able to test any of your grandparents? Nope.

18. Age of the oldest person you’ve tested? 84

19. Are you all done testing relatives? No way

 
20. If you could ask ANY one ancestor to test, living or dead, who would it be? All of my paternal and maternal great grandparents. They would be even more lost with the whole science thing than I am.