Summer is winding down with just a few days left, but Mother Nature hasn’t told Tucson yet as our highs are still in the mid-90s. However, monsoon season is also winding down so it won’t be long until we have perfect weather – warm days, cool nights and low humidity. Desert perfection, for sure!

Randy Seaver is forcing us to take a look at our own progress this week on Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with a particular focus on our own shortcomings:

1)  What started but unfinished projects do you have?  Define one or more of them, and how far along you are in the project.

I tend to stick with projects until I’ve completed them, but I do have a shortlist that needs to be completed by the end of the year:

1. Continue my software cleanup and decide whether to stick with RootsMagic and move to version 11 or to switch to another program.
   
   I’ve made some progress with the cleanup, but still have a ways to go. I might just have to admit that I don’t care about getting all those sources into software templates and just be content with my notes and citations in the image names. I’m still on the fence with this because I don’t like walking away from unfinished items on my checklist.

I have made good progress on which software I will use as I’ve narrowed it down to just TWO finalists.

2. Finish writing Ancestor Life Sketches for my maternal great-, 2X great and 3X great grandparents.

My cousins are enjoying the stories and I’m enjoying compiling all the details I have on each of them plus adding photos of known and unknown people that have been handed down.

I decided not to do the same with my paternal line because I have few photos and documents and they were poor Rusyn workers whose lives were pretty much the same for centuries in their village.

3. Clean up my blog.

I keep on top of updates for my blogs, but I’d like to condense a couple more pages. I also need to go through my Friday Finds back to 2024 (when they were Recommended Reads) to delete time-sensitive info, like upcoming conferences or links to blogs which might be gone.

That’s my list. I’m mostly caught up on genealogy projects with a couple o new ideas in the wings.

Thanks, Randy. I enjoyed this week’s challenge.

Tucson is in the midst of a much needed thunderstorm that is dropping lots of rain! Finally! Although the highs have only been in the 90s, it’s been very humid without a drop for over a week. Monsoon season is winding down this week and, of course, we are hoping we get a couple more rainfalls.

It’s also the weekend and time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver.

Here is this week’s challenge:

1)  Serendipity! What happened when you went looking for an ancestor or a genealogical record and were pleasantly surprised to find someone else or something else you didn’t expect while you were doing that search?

2)  Please share an instance when you had a serendipitous experience.

I love this challenge because it so happens I’ve been working on ancestor life sketches in my mom’s Adams line.

One of the collections I’ve been reviewing is that of my “unknown” photos.

I think I might have figured out one of them, which would be my serendipitous experience.

Here is one of my more interesting unknowns:

Here we have two boys who likely were participants in a church, school or community event with costumes. I have no idea bout the boy on the left, likely just a friend.

There was, of course, some reason why a photo was taken or kept and this looks exactly like a picture that a mother would want as a souvenir.

The boy on the right has always seemed familiar to me. Here is just his face cropped:

Look at the shape of the face, his eyes, the eyebrow slant, the straight nose with the nostril placement, his lips and, finally, his ears.

This photo dates from c1885. [My Charles was born in 1877, so 8 years old in 1885.]

Now look at this photo from c1915:

The bottom photo is my great grandfather, Charles Edwin Adams. He would have been in his mid 30s in this photo (born January 1877).

I think the boy in the photo is Charles.

What do you think? I think revisiting unknown photos can bring on new theories and I might have solved this mystery.

I definitely wasn’t expecting to maybe identify an unknown AND I think I figured out another photo, too. Serendipity!

Thanks, Randy, once again, for a fun topic.

Welcome to September! The Tucson heat has broken and we finally have days with highs only in the 90s. The weather is wonderful!!!

This is also the first weekend of the month and it’s time for Randy Seaver’s weekly Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge.

1)  How do you use Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to help you understand the lives, history, and geography associated with your family and your ancestors, that aid your genealogy and family history research?  

My answer isn’t going to be very long. I rarely use AI. If I do, it’s to create a research locality guide to identify resources that I might easily miss on my own when researching a less familiar-to-me area.

Also, I occasionally ask AI a question about a history detail I might come across when researching.

Aside from those uses, I only secondarily access AI when it’s operating behind the scenes as with full-text search and indexed records.

That pretty much sums it up for me!

Thank you, Randy, as always, for fun SNGF topics.