I generally prefer structure, and set goals and expectations. Of course, last year messed that up for many of us, so it feels good to return to structure. The 3 adults in our household are fully vaccinated, as are the majority of our friends. For us, there was never any question about our willingness to get the Covid vaccines. Now, our social calendar has started to fill out more. We’re still cautious, but more relaxed as far as interacting with certain people.

At the start of the year, I set some loose genealogical goals and, with summer coming, it’s time to revisit them.

Benson

This remains an easily solvable problem. I just need to visit a Family History Library for access to a particular database. Since the Omaha Public Library is an FHL affiliate library, I’m going to try them first. Our closest FHLs have odd hours, so the Omaha Public Library seems like the best place to start. Unfortunately, I’ve tried contacting them to ask if their FHL affiliate status means we can access databases that are otherwise locked from access at home. The reference librarian doesn’t seem to understand my question, so it’s a matter of visiting and giving it a try.

Hawksley

I set this goal aside for now, but I do have promising DNA matches in England. What I’d really like is to see someone with the Hawksley surname from the UK take a Y-DNA test with Family Tree DNA. That would be optimal, since I manage the Hawksley DNA project there.

mtDNA

I’ve made slow, but steady progress on researching my mtDNA line. First, I extended the maternal line of my closest match. His ancestors are in Sicily from the 1700s through the 1900s, and probably even further back in time. Then, I was able to finally find my 4th great-grandmother’s mother. It looks like Angela Giusto’s mother was Maria Bruzzone. There are far fewer records available online for the region I’m researching than there are for Sicily, and no church records. I’d like to find Angela Giusto and Tomasso Pedemonte’s marriage, so I can confirm her parents, and perhaps learn where they were born.

Wood/Gray

This is an unexpected goal I added to my genealogical research this year. My Wood and Gray families are from Manchester, Lancashire, England, and various places in England and Ireland before that. The GRO (General Register Office) makes it easy to order birth, marriage, and death records online as PDFs for a mere £7. That’s not quite $10 USD. So I’ve been getting any records from 1837 to present that are relevant to my direct ancestors.

Southern Ancestors

I think one of the goals I haven’t set, but would like to, is learning more about my southern ancestors and how they fared during and after the Civil War. I have many DNA cousins on this branch, and I think I would love to learn more about this family.

As for personal goals, those have pretty much been:

1. Read more often, usually a half hour every night.
2. Finish a cross-stitch. There’s no excuse not to, since I’m at the backstitching stage!
3. Level up my genealogy skills.

I think I’m doing pretty well at all of these goals, and the year itself has mostly been a good one. We did have a bumpy May, though, with our water heater and grinder pump both going bad within less than a week of each other. We were fortunate enough to be able to replace both, and the silver lining is we can count them as part of our renovation, since they’re on the side of the house we have yet to start working on. Well, I guess now we’ve officially started that half!