The current thing on social media is the "#10YearChallenge." To participate you post two pictures of yourself--one from the current year and one from 10 years prior to your social media of choice. After seeing others post, I finally got around to adding mine. Looking at my two pictures it doesn't look like much has changed for me.. It has though--good things and bad things. There is a lesson to be learned from this. Here in the US, the federal census is taken every 10 years. Let's say I look at the census records of my maternal grandparents and compare 1920 and 1930. I can see that they moved. However, there are things I can't tell from just viewing those 2 records. For them, the loss of two infant daughters who were born in those in between years would be at the top of the list. The real challenge in understanding our friends and for the genealogist, our ancestors is in knowing what happened in those in between years. Unfortunately for those with US ancestors the loss of the 1890 census created the "#20YearChallenge" Not entirely impossible to find things but it does make it harder. There are so many records out just waiting to be found. If you too have US ancestors you are likely excited about the upcoming release of the 1950 US Federal Census. Have you been able to find your families "paper trail" for the years leading up to it? If you haven't, you are not alone. I'm still working on mine too. Sometimes I'm so focused on further back in my research that I do a poor job with the more recent items. I need to try and do better with that.
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