First, I registered for Course 4: Writing and Publishing for Genealogists taught by Tom Jones, one of the best genealogy writers and editors. The week-long course is taught at Samford University’s Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR) in Birmingham, Alabama. The class fills up very quickly, with on-line registration opening at 12 noon on Tuesday. I was on-line as the class opened up at 11:58 am, according my computer clock. After finishing registration for the class I realized, in my excitement, I’d forgotten to sign up for on-campus room and board for the week. Logging back in at 12:08, Dr. Jones’ class was already full!
Second, success with DNA testing. I administer 10 DNA kits for family members on FTDNA, along with my additional testing on 23andMe and ancestry. I’ve sent one wave of invitations to all my 973 23andMe matches and added over 200 cousins to my chromosome maps, without finding any close relatives. That all changed this week, when I send out a second wave of invitations to 65 new relatives. One person responded almost immediately. It didn’t take us long to find we are related through our Buckmaster line, with my dad remembering his grand father. My new cousin and I share Charles Wilson Buckmaster and Mahala Hopkins as our most recent common ancestors, motivation for me to analyze Charles’ 500+ pages of Civil War pension file records sitting in two 3″ ring binders on my shelf.
Third – new record on my blog. After the post on Daisy McIntire Vickers, my blog site has had over 100 views/day for the past two days, a record for my blog, with nice comments from some of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but I’m still looking for the jam cake and fruit salad recipes. I’d love to share those, if anyone has her recipes.
Altogether a great week in genealogy and it’s only Thursday.