I love blogger Jill Ball’s Accentuate the Positive geneameme and am so glad that she has published it again this year.

Here are her questions and my answers:

1.  Google provided an answer to many general searches, but no single one comes to mind.

2.  I was the recipient of genearosity from several readers who have messaged on my blog and shared new details about several common ancestors.

3.  This headstone gave me some extra information – one in Preakness, New Jersey as it linked a collateral ancestor with earlier generations. The ancestor died in her 20s, but shared a gravestone (original to the time period) with a grandmother who died about the same time. With the lack of NJ records, it would have been very difficult to make the family connection.

4.  A useful record I discovered was a death certificate that named the suspected father of a person born in 1864 to parents who weren’t married.

5.  A newly found family member who shared – not newly found, but a second cousin from whom I rarely hear shared information on the births of the youngest generation on that side of the family.

6.  A geneasurprise I received was thank you notes from people to whom I gifted ancestral photos that I rescued/bought online. One lady in her 90s was absolutely thrilled and mailed me an handwritten note.

7.   My 2024 post that I was particularly proud of was the series I did on the Robert Caldwell family of Waterborough, Queens, New Brunswick, Canada.

8.   DNA helped me to do not much. I’ve fond no unexpected surprises and my brick walls are earlier in time than can be helped with autosomal DNA.

9.  I was pleased I upgraded to the Friend subscription level on American Ancestors. They offered TWO 30-minute sessions with a professional instead of one. Now, I need to decide what qustions to ask!

10. Although Face to Face events have returned Zoom has been my preferred method of attending genealogy meetings. Even the “local” meetings would involve an hour’s drive each way for a 90 minute meeting and most of my current interests are in places far from where I live. Zoom allows me to attend and participate regularly.

11. I dipped my toes into artificial intelligence, which I find to be quite scary in the long run.

12. I connected with a second cousin who asked for help researching his mother’s side of the family. We are related through his father.

13. By dipping my toes into AI I was able to learn more about the fun genealogy uses for AI in addition to the tech advances like with FamilySearch full-text search.

14. I was honoured to receive thank yous and a phone call from some of the people who received my gifted ancestral photos. (See Question #6 above.)

15. I found this presentation most useful – Thomas MacEntee and Randy Seaver gave talks to GeneaBlogger premium members about artificial intelligence. Both were excellent and I learned a lot.

16. A great repository/archive/library I visited was – none this eyar. The farthest I’ve been from home for genealogy is my local FamilySearch center.

17. I got the most value from this book – I splurged and bought Spartanburg County South Carolina Minutes of the County Court 1785-1799 by Brent Holcomb because most SC records on FamilySearch are locked and my husband has multiple families living in Spartanburg County in this time period. There are tons of mentions of those surnames in the index. That made me a very happy genealogist!

18. It was exciting to finally meet – no one new this year!

19. A geneadventure I enjoyed was – again, none this year.

20. Another positive I would like to share is how much I love connecting with other bloggers and readers. We are so lucky to live in a time where it is so easy to share information with others living so far away. I wish everyone a happy, healthy New Year with lots of genealogical successes in 2025.