2020 in the Rear View

I really couldn't have expected how 2020 was going to play out. Here at the end I took some time to post on things that fell by the wayside and look back. 

I did have postings in 2020  about the Baker family and their research into DYS458.2 minus DF95 men. I had some discussions particularly around R-ZP125 and my rough age estimates and I got to post some ideas and analysis from others.  

I now have Big Y 700 results for my "R-U152 Thompson" cousins in Indiana and the big Y 700 results from our friend Jensen in Denmark. The results from the Thompsons and Jensen just squeaked into 2020, even though they arrived months ago. 

Here is a link to the year in posts: https://wanderingtrees.com/2020/ 

I finished up my final course this semester and have earned that bachelor's degree. I spent the early hours this morning writing a bit about how the year went and where I'm at. 

With Big Y kits for the Indiana Thompsons and Jensen I feel like I'm tying up loose ends and keeping old promises. 

I spent some time reflecting on social media and my lack of participation. Participation is everything if you want the latest and greatest information from DNA groups so I'm definitely lagging behind, but the personal toll of Facebook was great enough that I don't regret leaving it. 

At this point, I consider myself lucky to be employed and to have food and shelter, and to have largely been left alone by Covid 19. My year has been busier on lockdown than expected but definitely not as horrific as it has been for my neighbors and some of my co-workers.

What is coming in the new year?

I'll continue to help people who ask questions about DNA testing or have connections they find here and on my wandering trees site or at ancestry.com. 

I have some new results from the Elmers that open up another known genealogical SNP associated with an ancestor on their branch of the Elmer tree. I've got an Elmer Big Y in the works and I also have two of my personal SNPs posted at YSEQ and may ask some of the lost Elmer sheep in New York to try them out to see if maybe they're related to me somehow.

I could get the Thompson's private Y SNPs testable at YSEQ. 

I could always resort to letter writing to Elmers in England or Thompsons in Butler Pennsylvania to see if I could recruit testers. I've heard that writing letters is better than digital communications. 

Picking up where I left off

After losing my wordpress site, restoring it and fixing it, I decided to make a list of the things I meant to post about over the year or more where I fell off the map. I also bastardized the traditional "Thompson" crest switching the hawks for the cornish choughs from the "Elmer" crest of the Bishop John Aylmer family. The Scots groups I have belonged to call this "differencing".

Here is my starter/apology post for 2019:

https://wanderingtrees.com/2019/11/29/fracta-non-victa/

Then I took some time over the Christmas break to catch up on a few of the things in that list.

In December, I explored my MTDNA results. They didn't answer any questions but led to research into just how far I could go with records to find my all mother. Finished up a piece on James Walsworth Elmore (his parentage is squishy on records if genetically in the right direction). I talked about Ancestry Thru Lines and the interesting and sometimes dangerous directions that can take you. I explored what it means to be a family, or now a shirttail cousin to my aunt's genetic family and I explored some of my Big Y 700 results.

https://wanderingtrees.com/2019/12/

January was a continuation of Big Y 700 in three posts where I'm thinking about the ever-widening circle of relatives and deeper time to my matching relatives.

https://wanderingtrees.com/2020/01/

I expect my next posts to be about the Baker family and their research into DYS458.2 minus DF95 men, a rebuttal to some of my big Y 700 conclusions, the Big Y 700 results of my "R-U152 Thompson" cousins in Indiana and the big Y 700 results from our friend Jensen in Denmark.

At the moment, seeking a bachelors degree and writing multiple APA style papers each week is burning into my writing time or I would probably have a little more to show.