I now list 35 Revolutionary War patriots in my kids' bloodline. That's a growth of eight in 2014. I don't expect a 20% growth in that list for 2015 though. Confirming a few more might be nice.
I attended the wedding of my third cousin in December and met some living family members, including a convergence story that's borderline creepy. Who would think that my third cousin from New York would marry someone who once lived just two doors away from where we live now in Ohio?
We'll make a point to visit the Catholic church in Somerset, Ohio again in 2015 where my fourth great grand uncle was a priest more than a century and a half ago. Richard Pius Miles would later become the first bishop of the Diocese of Nashville. If a family trip takes us near Nashville, we'll even visit his burial location in the basement of the church.
Whatever our 2015 Summer Vacation destination turns out to be, it will certainly include some family history stopovers.
2014 would have been a less-productive family history research year but for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania releasing their death certificates archive to Ancestry.com. That lifted Pennsylvania way up on the list of states where family history research is friendly. These death certificates helped solve some family mysteries and confirm some others. My sister-in-law and Aunt, by marriage, are two families with Ohio and Pennsylvania roots that have been made easier to research thanks to this action. Showing them my findings are on my list in 2015.
Not everything was merely electronic in 2014. I visited the clothing store my great great grandfather owned in Meadville, PA. It's now a coffee shop and bakery.
There are some regrets.
I still haven't seen or gotten a copy of the marriage certificate for Andrew Alfred Baker and Beatrice Merz my Aunt mentioned in an email a year ago. That information sparked a breakthrough that helped me complete my five-generation family tree. I may have to send her a digital camera with a return envelope to get a copy. Would that be too direct?
Figuring out once and for all whether the George Platt on the Brig Niagara at the Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813 is the same George F. Platt, my third great grandfather, who served at Lake Erie with the Pennsylvania Militia is a still-unfulfilled quest. I just recently obtained the National Archives military file for George F. Platt and there's no mention of his service to the Navy in the file. I'm still searching though.
I'm still waiting for some more photos from cousins. The Bernard Family Reunion yielded one great find, but the promise of more is on my list to get fulfilled in 2015. I'm really hoping my Cleveland second cousin once removed finds that missing box of photos with my great great grandmother's photo(s) in it too.
With my five-generation family tree now complete, the never-ending quest is to go deeper into the family tree. With less records, less headstones, and less photographs from that sixth generation and backward, that's going to be tougher to accomplish. That's 2015 in a nutshell.
