Trying to Refocus

It has been a long couple of months! Mom is finally home and while she isn't good, she continues to improve. I am almost four weeks out from surgery and much improved. So it's past time that I start to get back on track and take advantage of the time I still need to fully recover.

Last year I was able to really focus on just a few of my maternal lines. The letter transcriptions went well and I learned much about my Carlisle and Camfield lines. I was able to take my Graham line back a couple of generations and discovered my Doughty line. A little more was learned about the Wisner's. It was fairly easy to stay focused.

This year I have been overwhelmed very lucky to have made contact with several distant cousins who would like to share information!

I was excited to connect with a Carlisle cousin on Facebook and started really working on cleaning up my online tree. I haven't done as well sharing information as I should because much of what I have is already here, but I need to put what I have on a flash drive and send it out to her. Especially full size copies of pictures and the letters, many of which I have not transcribed yet. I also need to get back to my transcriptions and contact the library in Michigan to get the remaining letters.

When John's uncle passed back in February, several members of his family showed interest in his family history so I put their tree online at Ancestry and invited them to work on it with me. To my surprise some of them did. I spent a good deal of time cleaning up what I had, adding sources and uploading pictures. Shortly after that I was contacted by one of John's distant cousin's and worked on his lines some more. A friend has just offered to help with his line too, so I really need to focus more on these lines and contact more of his family for more information.

I discovered that Brenda (Journey to the Past) and I share Glover ancestors and that discovery reconnected me to our mutual cousin, Pittsburgh, so I have been looking at that line again. Of course that line is tangled up with my Hall line so I've also been playing with that. I have many documents for these lines that I need to share/transcribe.Brenda's post, Sorting Out Henry Glover, was a wake up call for me and I need to re-look at my sources. Most of what I have for the Glover's in New England was discovered back when I really didn't know what I was doing.

I've also been contacted by two different people about my paternal, Kelly line. This is very embarrassing as it a line that I should have made much progress on by now. I've driven to Michigan to obtain letters and documents but I have yet to make the time and short drive north to obtain the records that I need. I'm thrilled that I now know where in Ireland the Kelly's came from and I have spent hours tracking down more information and adding to my tree.

I also have just made contact with someone that may have information on Berry cousins that remained in England. I'm not certain where this will lead but I'm looking forward to learning more.

I have no idea where the next few weeks will take me but I'm looking forward to the journey!