I cannot believe that it has been over a year....

I am sorry.

Ever hear about writer's block? Life getting in the way? Well, it is real. On the up side, I have continued to search for family and actually succeeded in several ways. I am also a Marine Docent with the University of New Hampshire's Sea Grant Program. Yay. I think it is in my genes - the ocean that is. I spent this past summer volunteering on the Blue Ocean Society's whale watches. Amazing creatures out in the ocean! Learned some new skills, learned a lot about the ocean, it's environments and it's inhabitants. I now know enough to know that we hardly know anything about our ocean.

On the homefront - we remodeled the kitchen; a new grandbaby was added to the family; we went to Sicily for a month with granddaughter #1; we started harp lessons and built two new harps. I have my lampworking studio set up and running finally.

Well, enough about me...

I'm really excited about Ancestry.com's newest enhancements. No, sadly, not the way it looks. I find it tiresome to have to find the information I am looking for with all the bells and whistles that they have added. It takes up so much room on the screen! However, it is a done deal, so I am making great use of the additions that I do enjoy, namely the Wills and Probate database and in the dna department - Shared Matches. I have been looking up all of my heretofore virtually unknown ancestors - unknown because I know so little about them... I certainly have a much better understanding of a few of my ggfathers now. I also have a will or two from some older ancestor ggmothers. There is nothing like pinning down the children once and for all!

On the dna side, I made a wonderful discovery a couple of days ago using the Shared Matches function. I was able to find the common ancestor from someone I had no previous clue who the common ancestor was - we are 3rd cousins. Yay! I also discovered a 2nd cousin, and made that connection. I can't say it wasn't hard work along the way. I don't fully understand how it all works, but I am making baby steps towards understanding how to get information out of all the data one gets from taking a dna test. Do it. I really don't think you will regret it. If you need some more encouragement, please read these blogs:

http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/category/dna/

http://dna-explained.com/

http://segmentology.org

www.thegeneticgenealogist.com

Just to get you started.

So, I just ordered my mtdna full sequence test from FamilyTreeDNA. Most of my discovered matches have been on my paternal side, so now I want to see if I can find some maternal connections.

While I can't make any promises to jump right back into regular blogging, I am going to make the attempt. It's a big busy world out there, and I am just one little person. All I can say is I will do my best.

Cheers!