Hope you all had a great holiday season to round up 2017 with great family time. During the holidays I was able to meet all of my living ancestors, as well as all of my siblings and their kids, so I am definitely satisfied.
What I want to achieve in this blog post is wrapping up last year with the evaluation of my 2017 goal set, so I can improve setting up a more realistic 2018 list.
Let's shortly revise what I set up to:
What I want to achieve in this blog post is wrapping up last year with the evaluation of my 2017 goal set, so I can improve setting up a more realistic 2018 list.
Let's shortly revise what I set up to:
- Have a healthy son introduced into the world.
- Improve the family tree. This has subgoals as per the latest 2016 balancing blog.
2.1. Identify 40% of ancestors up to 10th gen - identify 818 ancestors (out of 2046).
I currently [think I] know 512 of them. This means 306 new ancestors in 2017.
2.2. Identify half of my paternal grandfather's 7th generation. I.e. 64 ancestors. - Run a Czech series for newbies in genetic genealogy.
- Break one or both of my closest brick walls.
4.1. This includes a sub-goal of gathering as much relevant samples as possible.
4.2. Work on recombination map and chromosome coverage on paternal side. - Test my own children.
- Start an "Ancestor of the week" feature - were I blog about one of my ancestors.
- Keep working with my genetic genealogy matches (this includes 23andMe matches and the relevant goal mentioned in the recent 2016 balancing blog).
1. Have a healthy son introduced into the world.
Yes! Vitus is not only a great boy (he can already say "daddy"), I was able to deepen the knowledge of my paternal ancestry driven by my first born son - here. 100% complete
2.2. Identify half of my paternal grandfather's 7th generation. I.e. 64 ancestors.
By very focused work, I was able to just achieve this goal! Yay!
7. Working with genetic matches.
I was definitely active in this direction and was able to map several US cousins to my tree (usually by building their own tree in the process).
On to the partial successes:
2.1. Identify 40% of ancestors up to 10th gen - identify 818 ancestors (out of 2046).
Well, today finds me at 635 ancestors. Some somewhat hypothetical. That is not too bad of a growth from the 512 I had last year (24%). I guess my goal was just too aggressive.
If I want to aim at another 24%, my goal for 2018 would be 788 ancestors.
3. Run a Czech series for newbies in genetic genealogy.
This was a very small success at the last minute. I ran a blog about the most common Czech DNA test - Genetics and Surnames project.
4. Break one or both of my closest brick walls.
Based on DNA testing, I now have a candidate father for my great-great-grandfather, Antonin Sula, 1871. The new supposed ancestor is Frantisek Skrejsovsky, 1837.
Further testing will be needed to verify this hypothesis.
The other MPE will be harder to identify, as there is quite heavy endogamy in the Hornacko region, and lack of Czech testers.
5. Test my own children.
This was another last minute save. We sent out my daughters tests to 23andMe on Dec 23rd. It was a pleasant surprise that my 3 year old was able to spit enough (not verified by the lab).
My youngest remains untested. I am kinda on a lookout for FTDNA move to GSA chip...
Total failure:
6. Start an "Ancestor of the week" feature - were I blog about one of my ancestors.
Well the Ancestor of the week is the only thing I have not managed to start in 2017. Hopefully, I can do better in 2018!
With that I am looking forward to the 2018 plan post and hope you all had better success planning your goals than I did.