My 2023 Research Year In Review

January
The Best of ESM series at LegacyFamilyTree Webinars began.  It was offered as a members-only series and it is worth every bit of the price of membership and more.  I have learned so much from this series.
Breakthru in my Cook research
Continued with to grow my collection of books for my personal library focusing on the sicknesses my ancestors faced--Tuberculosis, Influenza etc.

February
Did a LOT of cluster research:  Harrisons, Lightfoot/Deberry, Hights
Discovered more documents about George Solifelt's time in the State Penitentiaries of PA

Wm & Elvira Cooper Harrison's Rev War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant File
https://mariegen.blogspot.com/2023/02/elvira-harrisons-bounty-land-warrant.html

March
RootsTech 2023
Did a lot of reading thru records at FamilySearch.org with great success.
Was able to find my maternal Great Aunt's divorce records.
Studied my Grandparent's neighbors from their Charlotte Street years.

April
Celebrated 19 years of writing this blog!
Found another mention of George Solifelt in a newspaper.


May
Worked in Fold3 records a good bit and was busy with life outside of genealogy much of May.

About two times a month for the past several years, one of my fellow researchers has been hosting a Zoom Genealogy Chat. I try to attend as many as possible.

June
I transcribed the affidavit of Wm Harrison which detailed his Revolutionary War service.  I really need to work on an outline of his Pension file.

Purchased more genealogy books and worked on organizing and cataloging my library at LibraryThing
Ordered and Received the Court Martial File of George Solifelt from Gopher Records

July
Apparently the theme for July was LAND as I worked on land records for each of the Adcock, Frizzell, Harrison, and Putman families.
Found a pre-nuptial for the widow of a Great Grand Uncle.
Transcribed George Solifelt's Court Martial File

August
More Land records research. This time the focus was on the Jakes Coffee Co TN land.
Tinkered with MyHeritage's PhotoDater tool using a few photos from my collection.
Found a Wm P Cook listed as a witness in 1817 Rutherford Co TN.
Found Wm C Cook in District 10 of Bedford Co TN 1846

August was a tough month health-wise as I had multiple scans which determined that my breast cancer had metastasized.

September
I focused mainly on research in the newspapers in September.
It was the month I was receiving radiation treatments so that played a big part in my productivity.

October
Revolutionary War Records was the them for this month's research. I finally made the time to go thru Nathan Frizzell's file and found a few other pension files which helped with collateral research.

Looked at a Mystery DNA Group of matches using DNAPainter

November
Had some really great research time in the Franklin Co NC Probate & Deed records at FamilySearch.org which was cut short when a "system change at FamilySearch restricted access to images in several United States historical collections." They hope to have that issue resolved soon.

I tested out ChatGPT 3.5

Ordered and Received a copy of my 2nd Great Grandfather's Federal Court Records
from NARA-ATL

December
Found a cancelled Land Transaction that could potentially be that of my 2nd Gr Grandfather. I ordered it from Gopher Records and had a great turn around on the order. Still working with analysis of the documents to try and determine if it is my Wm C Cook and if not, the identity . I see a blog post on this coming in the new year.  

Reviewed George Solifelt and all the records I have on him.
https://mariegen.blogspot.com/2023/12/george-and-his-amazing-paper-trail.html

Test Driving Ancestry's Pro Tools to see if they add enough value to my research to justify the the extra $120 a year.  So far I've tested:  Tree Checker,  Charts & Reports and Map View,


Even with the health challenges I have had a pretty good research year.  I look forward to 2024 and hope that it will bring many more research discoveries for us all.

Image by DALL E 3   on Bing