What's Your Number 2014

So this time last year I started the year out with finding out what/who I do know, with What's Your Number.  Taking the number of possible people in your family tree and comparing that to the actually number you have discovered.

I didn't do that much discovery this year.  I spent almost all my time renaming and cleaning up all my files Keeping Your Leaves in Order... File Naming.  Bad part is I only got through my paternal tree, 600 some files, it was a lot more than I imagined to would be. What time I didn't spend in file organizing I spent in DNA.

2014 wasn't a lose though, I did find 19 new family members and hope to make many new finds with the updates made on AncestryDNA.  I will say cleaning up my files really was a confidence booster. organizing my paper trail of family members and having proof not just a name and date.

All in all it was a 2% increase, which is always a win.  It's only a couple of days into the new year and I already have some prospects to research that will increase my numbers even more for next year.  I have my maternal side to file clean up but the number of files on that side aren't as big so hopefully it won't take me a year.

Leave me a comment below and let me know your numbers and happy hunting in 2015.

Memorial May

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, it's been a busy spring both at home and work. Anyways May is one of my favorite months, and with all the relatives I have found and mapped, I can't go see them all on Memorial day. I usually am able to fit in about a hand full of cemeteries before it's an all day event. So that being said I am declaring the month of May "Memorial May" because it will take me a month to go see most, not even all the known cemeteries.

Last year was the first Memorial day after I had met Mandi Brown with her knowledge of cemetery preservation, and the use of the chemical D2. You can learn more about my initial review of D2 in my blog post called "Preserving Family Memories... Making Stones Last Forever". Well its been almost a year now, I have already bought another gallon of D2, and getting excited to visit other cemeteries that I missed last year.

I have already been to three cemeteries so far, but revisiting Sugar Creek Cemetery was the first time since the family reunion last October. Wow was I surprised. I didn't imagine D2 would keep working through the winter, not that there is a reason to just didn't think about it. So here are some photos again of D2 at work. I did go ahead an re-spray the stones this year, I plan to do so each year to keep them clean and to help preserve them for future generations. Check out the captions of the photos I will leave some details there. Also thanks to Tom DeBerry who has done a great job through Find A Grave to make sure every memorial in Sugar Creek is documented.



Pre D2

Photo by Tom DeBerry 2011

12 Months after D2
Photo by Eric Stitt May 2014

5 Months after spray with D2

Photo by Eric Stitt Oct 2013



12 Months after D2
Photo by Eric Stitt May 2014

Pre D2
Photo by Tom DeBerry 2011

12 Months after D2
Photo by Eric Stitt May 2014





 









What's Your Number

I am feeding this off another blog Genea-Musings who posted this post called What's Your Number.  The premise behind this is to look at the numbers and gauge where you are at discovering your ancestors.

Here is the formula, first there is you, then two parents and they each had two parents, so as you go up to the next generation your number doubles.  Going off Genea-Musings post, I went back 10 generations which when you add it all together means you are searching for 1,023 people including yourself.  Then figuring who you have discovered over the ten generations you divide them from the number of possible people and that lets your know the percentage of family members you have discovered.

So below are my numbers, I was kind of shocked, not that I thought I was reaching the end but how little I have actually discovered.  I usually stop researching a branch once I've figure out who the immigrant to the United States is, mainly because there its tons to discover on this side of the pond and I haven't started paying for an international subscription to Ancestry.com.  I will have to post later if I ever do the math of the number of discovering the American families and don't count it against me if I stopped researching.

This sure seems like a lot of people and to think that ten generations is only about 300 years.  I guess I have plenty more searching to work on, it's at least good knowing where you stand, right!!!   Will have to keep this post going each year and see how the numbers grow.