Report card - Honeysuckle Farm, LLC

Report Card 2022

Overall, 2022 was a really great year for my family history research. Before I talk about that though, let’s review the goals I set for 2022. Here they are:

“With my business still being less than one year old and my book project in full swing, I think following 2021’s mantra of keeping plans “simple and uncrowded” is a good idea. So here is my simple and uncrowded plan for 2022:

Finish organizing and preserving documents and photos. I have to do that with the lines that are going into my book anyway so I think this is a good strategy.

Print records that are online-only so I have a paper backup in case something were to happen to my online access. Of course, these will then have to be organized/preserved but I think having a paper backup is important. The end goal will be to have a dual set of records – one digital and one paper.

Continue writing blog posts and commit to at least 12. That’s only one per month. I hope to do more but with all that’s going on, I think I’ll stick with this number as a minimum.

Have a complete first draft of my book by December, 2022.

Ancestral focus: my SEELY line.

I hoped for fewer than 5 goals but this is what I settled on. We’ll see how it goes. I hope that your 2022 is blessed and that you meet all your goals plus do a few things you never thought you’d get to do.”
https://honeysuckle-farm.com/2021-report-card/

How Did I Do?

I was able to meet goal one as far as the main family I’m writing about. Beyond that, nothing else got done on goal #1.
On goal #2, I got very little done. I did, however, make quite a bit of progress on my future son-in-law’s family tree and was able to get a bunch of his family photos downloaded for him. So again, some progress but not a lot.
On goal #3, I wrote 29 blog posts plus 25 draft posts that never got finished/published. I also wrote 8 blog posts on my new Ink & Perfume blog that goes with my business. So, a win on goal #3 although I admit, I set my goals toward the low end on that one.
However, I made up for that in goal #4 which was to have a completed first draft book by December. I completed my first draft on November 27th and I am so excited about that!! Several of our ancestral lines are in the book. In the end, I gave up on the idea of a non-fiction family history book (at least for this year) in favor of a middle grade historical fiction novel that my grandsons would enjoy. It was the right decision and it saved my book so I don’t regret it! The book still includes ancestors but in a way that will interest my grandsons.
Goal #5 was to make progress on my SEELY ancestral line, which I did. I took a wonderful trip in December of 2021 to Pennsylvania and was able to do a lot of SEELY research. In the summer of 2022, I got to travel with my husband and was able to continue the Seely research following the family from Pennsylvania into Missouri. I was able to condense that research into some blog posts to share with readers.

I consider 2022 a big success as far as genealogy. I hope to finish writing 2022 blog posts that I started and even some that I didn’t start but intended to share. I got in a ton of research time and a couple of big research trips that I haven’t even shared with you yet.

2023

In 2023, I think the “simple and uncrowded” plan that’s been the norm for this decade is a good idea. This decade seems to be chaotic and unpredictable so far with no sign of changing. So here’s what I’m going with for 2023:

Self-education with a focus on methodology & skills, writing & publishing, organization, and DNA. I plan to try to do one training session per month equating to one topic per quarter.
Organization is a huge overall goal for me in 2023 so I’ll retain the goal of organizing what information I have and take it a step further to include cataloging the information so that when I’m gone someone else will be able to see what I have in my collection.
Writing: I’m going to retain the blog post goal of 12 posts for the year. Considering everything else I have on my plate right now, this seems like a reasonable choice. In addition to the blog, I’ll be revising/editing/publishing book #1 and finishing book #2.
My family focus this year will be the family of William & Hester (MITCHELL) DRAKE.

I hope that your 2022 has been a successful year in at least one area of your life. I pray your 2023 is even more successful.

Happy New Year,

Lisa @ Days of Our Lives blog

2020 Report Card

I typically do a “report card” post at the end of each year to see if I met any of my goals or not and to set new goals for the new year. It looks like in 2019 my last post was about Y2K. Hindsight says it was an appropriate post heading into the disaster that was 2020. Hopefully 2021 will improve.

So, let’s roll on back to the 2018 report card and see what happened there. Life is considerably different now. My daughter found her own place and moved out quite some time ago- maybe the summer after the 2018 post was written. By mid-2019 when she moved out, things were still busy and then Covid hit in early 2020. Rather than writing during Covid, I did more research and learning and less writing. Overall numbers- in 2018 I wrote 53 blog posts (phenomenal!). In 2019, I wrote 15 posts but also got all my old blog posts moved over to WordPress- a definite win. In 2020 I wrote 9 posts, 2 of which were for other people outside of my family and 1 of which is not public for reasons I won’t go into here. I’ll take those 9 posts as a win given all we’ve been through during 2020, not to mention the fact that the first 6 months of the year I spent a lot of time learning how to interpret my DNA results which helped a lot through the rest of 2020 and will continue to help into the future. In addition to the blog, I’ve begun offering my services to write stories for other people’s families as a small side business. I’ve done two stories for others so far and have another in the works right now. I’m pretty pleased with how that venture is going.

It looks like I had someone lined up to possibly write a guest post in 2018. I have no idea who that was and the person never wrote the post or I would have certainly passed it along to you. That’s unfortunate. I always enjoy it when others write stories for the blog. I can see in the 2018 post that I planned on using 2019 to unpack and organize records. I did do fairly well with that although there is much left to do in that regard. I’d say I did enough to make it a win in 2019. As far as 2020 goes, I feel like any progress was a win for the disastrous 2020 year. The 9 posts and extensive research I did count as a win in my book.

Looking forward to 2021, I’ll set my goals as follows:

Continue unpacking and organizing: I’ll continue doing what I started in 2018 and just try to get everything unpacked and sorted out. Pictures and documents also need to be preserved.
Commit to writing at least 12 blog posts. I’ll be utilizing Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks most likely but will also utilize Genealogy Photo A Day on Instagram for additional inspiration when needed. Sometimes I find plenty of inspiration in what I’m currently researching so I’ll let that guide me as well.
Ancestral focus: Nicholas REITER (again- yes. His line is the shortest because I can’t seem to get anywhere with it.)

I’m keeping 2021 simple and uncrowded. I think for this year that will work best. We’re heading into uncertain times with the presidential election uproar. I prefer to meet the goals I set so I’m keeping it simple. Also, my childhood best friend just moved back to the area this week and I’m looking forward to having future adventures with her.

I wish you love, success, and happiness in 2021. Happy New Year!

Lisa @ Days of Our Lives blog

Nina Simone- Feeling Good

Header image is courtesy of Jude Beck and can be found at Unsplash.

2018 Report Card

You can read my 2017 report card here. Other report cards in other years are usually posted around December 31st of each year. The 2018 report card, much like the 2018 year, has gotten completely derailed. This year my daughter and her two sons moved in with us. While I really love having them around, my research and writing time doesn’t exist anymore. And that’s okay. Life should be spent on those we have with us – in building relationships with the people God has given us. I do miss writing very much but I’m sure I’ll get back to it at some point in the future. In the meantime, I’m searching for cousins to do guest posts about once a month. This is your big chance, guys! Contact me. I have a newly found cousin who is currently writing a guest post about her family that married into our family. I hope I’ll be able to post that for you soon.
In the meantime, let’s talk about 2018 for a bit.

2018 Goals were:

Learn more about my 3rd great-grandmother, Sarah DAVIS REITER. (Research goal)
Take a writing course to improve my storytelling. (Self-improvement goals)
Be more consistent with my blogging. (Sharing goal)

Frankly, I didn’t meet any goals. I am meeting a multi-year goal in that I am finally getting my genealogy records unpacked and organized and I have a designated space for them. It’s taking a while but I’ll get there.
2019
In 2019, I’m just going to focus on unpacking and organizing all my records so that I can go into 2020 in a better place with my genealogy. I’ll be looking for cousins who are willing to write guest posts this year – if that’s you PLEASE let me know! Hopefully, I’ll have time to post some of the records I unpack from time to time and share them with you.
So this year (as I sometimes told my elementary students), “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit”! As a small consolation prize, I give you this cousin photo.

Above: Christmas at the Bates home. Left to right back row: me (Lisa), Clayton, Terry. Front row left to right: Doyle, Tracy, Cortney. If I mis-identified someone let me know asap!
Until next time,

~ Lisa at Days of Our Lives

2017 Report Card

Here we are again at the end of another year. The years seem to go by faster the older I get! Each New Year’s Eve I try to review the previous year and how well (or not) I met my goals and also set goals for the coming year. As I’ve said before, even if I don’t reach the goals in the year I made them, I will often reach them in a different year. It never ceases to surprise me how the universe seems to work to meet my goals if I put them out there. Most years I put my goals out to the universe and don’t look at them again until the end of the year. It’s always a fun surprise to see how things turn out.

2017 Goals
1. Learn more about my 3rd great grandmother Hester Ann Eglentine MITCHELL DRAKE. (Research goal)
I didn’t do very well on this goal so hopefully progress will come in the next year or two on this line. I did two blog posts which referenced Hester. One blog post was about her mom, Lucretia HUTCHISON MITCHELL HARTMAN, which you can find on the old Livejournal blog here. The other is about her husband, William DRAKE, and can also be found on the old Livejournal blog here. I’m hoping to get back in touch with another researcher on this line and make some progress soon.
2. Continue to blog but with a more regular schedule and begin including some of Bart’s family stories as well. (Writing/Sharing goals)
Well, I did well for a few months but a new job got me derailed and I never quite got back on track. Hopefully this year will be better. I typically do well for the first few months of the year and then my blog posts trail off as life gets in the way.
I made some changes to the format of the blog that I really liked and I may continue to use the format where I post a Sunday preview and then a Saturday recap that includes any new information I received after the original post went live. I’ve invited another cousin to do a guest blog post and I’m hoping she accepts soon. I think I’d like to do a lot more guest posts so you all have something to read and I still have time for things that pull me away from the blog. So if you’re interested, this is an open invitation for you to write a guest post on my blog in 2018!
This year I began to tell some of my husband’s family stories on the blog. That was a lot of fun for me and a nice change in storytelling. I’m looking forward to telling more stories from both our families in the future. I also began the “Stories for the Boys” series where I tell stories from mine and my husband’s lives so the boys will have stories about us in addition to the ancestral stories I tell.
My husband’s parents agreed to do their DNA so I’m hoping to make a lot more progress on his family tree this coming year. My daughter, daughter-in-law and son-in-law all agreed to do their DNA as well so hopefully the coming year will bring a lot of new information on all sides. My oldest grandchildren are getting old enough that we can start digging into their family histories and getting them involved in it and I’m really looking forward to doing family history-related activities with them.
One last change to the blog was to move it from Livejournal to WordPress in order to include audio clips. There are still features of Livejournal that I like better but overall I think this was a good move.
3. Set up a research area in a spare room and FINALLY get started on those organization goals I’ve had the last couple of years. (Organizing goals)
I got my research area set up but found that I didn’t use it all that much. It did get all my books and most of my unpacked research together in one place so that’s something.
Do you remember my post a little over a year ago about our hot-water-heater fiasco? You can find it here. It’s very short if you want to read it. Well…we finally decided to go ahead and build that new house in 2018. I’m pretty excited about that! Unlike the house we’re currently living in, the new house will be built by someone else. It was interesting designing and building this one but I don’t want to do that again! Once was enough. We made a few changes to the house plan but one thing I will definitely get to have is a room for my genealogy research. Hopefully the new research room will be one that I use a lot more often.
4. Create a successful class to teach Spring, 2017 at conference. (Self-Improvement Goal)
I put my class together and presented at a conference this year. It was fun and exciting and I got some good feedback from participants. I haven’t agreed to do another class yet. I may still decide to do one but I don’t have much time left to make a decision. My presentation was about blogging your family history. I have considered doing that one again and incorporating some changes that participants suggested and also doing a class about getting children interested in family history.
2018 on the Blog
I’m floundering on my goals this year so I’m going to keep it short and simple. New goals for a new year:

Learn more about my 3rd great-grandmother, Sarah DAVIS REITER. (Research goal)
Take a writing course to improve my storytelling. (Self-improvement goals)
Be more consistent with my blogging. (Sharing goal)

That’s it! Just three goals this year. I’m hoping to keep it simple and stay focused on blogging and research this year.

Hau’oli Makahiki Hou! Happy new year, everyone. I hope it’s your best year ever!

(Me in Hawaii, Dec. 2017)

Until 2018,
~ Lisa at Days of Our Lives

Where did this blog go?!

I posted a grand total of ONE time last year and that was my New Year’s resolution post. *Wow* Last year was crazy but I probably could have done better than one post. Although to give myself some credit- I’ve had 3 different jobs in the last 2 years in addition to some other much-less-than-desirable life events- just the way life happened. I’m in a more steady job and one I love now so maybe in 2015 I can get it together in regard to my blog. I had quite the scare this morning because when I tried to log on to my blog it said this account had been deleted and purged. *YIKES!* I was just on it a couple days ago. I was panicked. I finally went into my email to see if they had sent me an email about it and I missed it. Nope. No email like that but I found one that said I had logged on from a new device in 2013 so I ran with it and clicked “change my password”. Well, Livejournal let me change my password and here I am- into my account and with all my previous posts in place. Whew! That’s great news since one of my goals this year is to join my sister-in-law in blogging our respective genealogies. You can find my sister-in-law’s blog at Down in the Root Cellar.
In review, last year’s resolutions were:
Um…yeah. Apparently they didn’t make it all the way to the blog. 2013 goals also didn’t make it to the blog. Things may be worse than I thought here. As I recall, my 2014 target ancestor was Minerva Underwood (under “research goal”). I *think* my writing goal remained the same which was to blog consistently (obviously a major fail on my part). I have no idea if I retained the goal of organizing my genealogy. If I did, rest assured that was also a fail. In regard to the sharing goal, I did share information but still have not gotten around to publishing which is what I would ultimately like to do.
I fashioned my goal-setting from Amy Coffin’s We Tree blog goals for 2012 with a nod to her thoughts on goals. I did add two goal categories to hers- a sharing goal (added previously and continuing) and a self-improvement goal (new for this year).
So…drum roll please…my new 2015 goals include:
1. To learn more about my great-great-great-grandmother’s family (Mary Elizabeth LANE). (Research goal)
2. To blog consistently using No Story Too Small’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge as an inspiration. I will be doing this alongside my sister-in-law who will be using the same challenge and blogging at Down in the Root Cellar. (Writing goal)
3. To start over in reviewing and organizing my family history utilizing ideas from Thomas MacEntee’s Genealogy Do-Over Challenge. (Organizing goal)
4. To share some of the family history and research with relatives by publishing. To help me with this I’ll be attending Thomas MacEntee’s and Lisa Alzo’s Genealogy Self-Publishing Bootcamp online. (Sharing goal)
5. To attend a conference/workshop/educational event. This year’s choice is Family History Conference of Northwest Arkansas 2015. I’ll be attending with my mom and hopefully my sister-in-law. (Self-Improvement Goal)
This is an incredibly ambitious goal for someone who only made one blog post last year and hasn’t been able to get resolutions on the blog for 2 years but like Amy Coffin said- goals should be a little bit scary (and also planned out). I’m optimistic that things have settled down enough in my life that this year I can get back into it. Plus, I have a more structured plan to carry it out. I’m so looking forward to 2015. I’m grateful to God for getting me through the last couple of years and I know things are going to look up in the coming year. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL! Please post your goals if you’ve made them!

Resolutions

It’s been a very long time since I posted anything. 2011-2013 were very difficult years. We’ve been blessed with additions of 3 grandsons but we’ve lost many loved ones during 2011-2013. Nonetheless, God chooses our paths and we trust his goodness and mercy.
I wanted to get back to posting new year’s resolutions pertaining to my genealogy. It seems like there is always some serendipitous find after I post my goals to the universe. I love that! I fashioned my goal-setting from Amy Coffin’s The We Tree Genealogy Blog at http://wetree.blogspot.com/. I did add one type of goal to her suggestions- a sharing goal.
In 2012, my genealogy goals are:
1. To learn more about my great-great-grandfather’s family (Nicholas Wilhelm Reiter)(Research goal)
2. To blog consistently. (Writing goal)
3. To scan in at least some of my proof documents (B/M/D, census, etc)(Organizing goal)
4. To share some of the family history and research with relatives (Sharing goal)
Previous research goals have been met by the above-mentioned serendipitous finds. My previous writing and organizing goals have been hit-and-miss as far as completion. My sharing goals could be increased. So there you have it. Good luck with your own goals and I invite you to post them here.
~Lisa

Out with the Old and In with the New

Last year was a year of beginnings as you can read about in my December 31, 2011, blog post. If 2011 was a year of beginnings, 2012 was a year of endings. My second grandson nearly died on his third day of life. He spent 6 weeks in the hospital and we did not know if he would make it. God blessed us by giving my grandson life. But when my grandson was six months old, God chose to take my son’s life. It has been a difficult year to say the least. My graduation from OU with my Masters degree was bittersweet. That was a victory I was set to share with my son as his favorite football team was OU and I wanted him there to see me walk across the stage and receive my diploma at the ceremony in May, 2013. My time of traveling with my husband ended when I took a job in October.
All of these events factored into my sporadic blog posts and in a decrease in my genealogy time. So when it was time to write a New Year’s 2013 post I couldn’t even remember the goals I set for myself. Luckily, my goals still survived on the internet and I could go back and review them.
Goal number 1 was a research goal and I wanted to learn more about my great-grandmother’s family. I didn’t learn much other than that my great-grandmother’s mother had a child who died at a very young age. I posted about this child- Anna Hubbard- on the March 25, 2012, blog post. My family members read the blog post, called other family on the West Coast, and got back in touch with me with some information about Anna. I find it comforting to think that at least for a couple of more generations Anna will be remembered.
Goal number 2 was a writing goal to complete and publish a transcription of records local to my county. Shortly after beginning the project I found that the records had already been published. I had searched for them prior to beginning transcription and had not found any that were published. Fortunately, I made the discovery before a lot of work had been done so I abandoned that goal and project. That happened early in the year and I did not take up another writing project other than continuing updates on my blog.
Goal number 3 was an organizational goal and involved scanning in documents that I own in order to preserve them, share them in the future, and also to assist in organizing my records. I made little progress in this area but considering the difficulties faced during the year, I found it acceptable that at least I had transcribed a few records in my blog posts.
Goal number 4 was a sharing goal. I wanted to share family history and research with relatives. I met this goal through my blog, through passing on requested information to other relatives, and through sharing photographs with other family members. I also made a few contacts with new family members this year and I hope to maintain those contacts in the coming year, especially since one of those contacts was made with a family member on my great-grandmother’s side (the one I had hoped to make progress on in 2012).
A goal that was met but not specifically included in the 2011 goals was to make a break-through on my Gibson line. This line has been a brick wall for decades. I’m so happy to announce that I was finally able to make contact with another family researcher. This line was also a brick wall for her. The good news was that the information I had in my possession supplied her with what she needed and the information she had met my needs so we both were able to make a break-through on this line!
Now for the new 2013 goals:
1. To learn more about my Underwood family (Research goal)
2. To make significant progress (perhaps a first draft manuscript) in writing my family history book (Writing goal)
3. To begin scanning in my documents (Organization and Preservation goal)
4. To share some of my family history with others (Sharing goal)
5. To assist others in reaching their goals regardless of whether I get something out of it (Random Acts of Kindness goal)
6. To follow, for as long as I can,We Tree’s 52
Weeks to Better Genealogy(Skills Improvement goal)
This is an increase in the number of goals set compared to last year but I still feel they are reasonable and can be met. I’m looking forward to maintaining this blog and adding information more frequently this year as part of my sharing goal.
Happy New Year to all!

2011

Some of the best parts of 2011 relate to my personal family history. At the beginning of 2011, my daughter had just gotten married and shortly thereafter my son married. Before the end of the year, my daughter had a son and my son’s baby will be here in less than 2 months. I took a phenomenal trip to Massachusetts this year and was able to do research on several lines that I don’t normally research. The end result of the trip was a Christmas gift to my parents which included a 20-page book I wrote about our family in Massachusetts.
This year I started blogging about the histories of families in my local area which promptly got derailed by my studies for my Masters degree. I started doing genealogy research on a professional level and am working toward professional certification. And, I started a very large transcription project which I hope will result in publication and be of benefit to those who research in my locale.
That’s a lot of beginnings for one little year!
I took an idea from Amy Coffin’s The We Tree Genealogy Blog at http://wetree.blogspot.com/ to set my goals for 2012. I did add one type of goal to her suggestions- a sharing goal. In 2012, my genealogy goals are:
1. To learn more about my great-grandmother’s family (Edith Hubbard Drake)(Research goal)
2. To publish my current records transcription project (Writing goal)
3. To scan in at least some of my proof documents (B/M/D, census, etc)(Organizing goal)
4. To share some of the family history and research with relatives (Sharing goal)
I expect to do some traveling this year and hope to get in at least one good research trip as well. There are many things I’d like to do and there never seems to be enough time to do all I want. Hopefully having only four major goals this year will allow me to be successful.
Now if I could just pare down my personal goals…
Happy new year to all- may it be the best one yet!
~Lisa at Days of Our Lives Genealogy Blog

Category: Report card

How Did I Do?

2023