A Look Back at 2019 and a Look Ahead to 2020

2020 is well underway. I hope you and I have a great year with lots of walls tumbling down. With the new year, it's always good to look back at the previous year and remember things we discovered, things we learned and things we can improve on.

In 2019, my biggest genealogical achievement was the discovery of the marriage record of the parents of my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Dunzinger. I already knew her father's name and his marriage record gave me her mother's name, along with her mother's parents' names, which were a complete mystery to me. This discovery gave me my great-great-grandmother, Anna Ziegelmueller and her parents Paul Ziegelmueller and Victoria Seefried.

Another great find last year was a ship's passenger death index entry showing the death of my great-great-grandfather, Johan Diedrich Menke, on September 27, 1871 at the age of 54, of tuberculosis.

I found the death certificate of my great-grandfather, Aloys Panther, in Dodgeville, Des Moines County, Iowa. I did not have his correct death date or location previously, even though I've known about him longer than I've worked on genealogy.

I found a tiny bit of information about my grandfather, Leo Miller's military service during World War I.

I found the birth certificates of several of my aunts and uncles and the delayed birth certificate of my father.

I attended the Nebraska State Genealogical Society Spring Conference, meeting and learning from Blaine Bettinger. This was a real treat.

So what could I do better in the coming year? I need to put more effort into keeping up my blog. This year I had one month where I only made one post and I've been having a difficult time finding the time, motivation, and subject matter for new posts.

This spring is the Nebraska State Genealogical Society Spring Conference, being held again in my hometown of Columbus, Nebraska, where I will meet and learn from Tom Jones.

I hope to be able to make more sense of my DNA results. I've spent a good deal of money testing myself, close and distant relations, but the most I've accomplished with this is validating research that I've already completed. I have not been able to actually make any new discoveries using DNA. I hope to be able to learn to use the test results to break down some brick walls.

--Matt