What can I say? I have been overwhelmed with researching my two big projects [“Who Was Warham Lee?” and “Hotchkiss, Lee, Munn, Tilden and Other Related Families”] and tracing my DNA matches to see how we really connect. Of the almost 200 matches that I have decided to research (out of 73,433 total “cousins”), I have proved 67, and classed 10 as being too distant to process at this time.

I have been spending a great deal of my energy reading old books (thank you HathiTrust!), census records, and my new favorite, obituaries. To paraphrase Dr. Deborah Abbott, when you are trying to find someone, hope they are dead because they leave more documents. I do ignore posted pedigrees for anything other than potential directions to research. So, each match research starts with what they might have posted or what Thru Lines might have guessed and then I start the hours of research to see if there are acceptible documentation to get from our most recent common ancestor to them. Many of the efforts requires going back to my 4th great grandparents and expanding their descendants and then then aunts, uncles, and cousins. Sometimes, I get to the point of being able to ascertain the match is the child of one of their grandparents’ children but there the line breaks. Time to send a message and hope they reply. I have a fairly normal rate of replies (that means whenever one comes in, I am surprised and ecstatic to see how it helps link us together).

It does not help that NEHGS keeps tempting me with new books. Early New England Families (vol 1 & 2) by Alicia Crane Williams is now on my bookshelf. AND The Great Migration, Immigrants to New England 1636-1638, Volume 1 was just released! Now to rearrange to bookshelves to add this next sequence (of course, first going through the index to see who in my line makes an appearance).

OK, and it does not help that Elizabeth Shown Mills has just released the Fourth Edition of Evidence Explained! I am reading Chapter 1 now to get an idea of the impact on my previous work.

It is really a good thing I do not have to go to a job. My days are quite full!