52 Weeks – Week 52: Looking Ahead

I did it! With this post, I’ve completed Amy Johnson Crow’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks“!

Last week I took a look back over this past year and the current 52 Ancestors challenge. This week I will be “Looking Ahead”. And what’s ahead? Another 52 Weeks challenge! In a December 8, 2022 email to her email subscribers, Amy Crow Johnson announced that the 52 Ancestors Challenge would be returning for 2023.

As I write this [I wrote this in early December and scheduled an autopost, because we were travelling for the holidays], Amy hasn’t posted the weekly prompts for 2023. I am both excited and nervous to see what they’ll be. The hardest part of this challenge has been thinking of fresh and new things to discuss, explore, and share. It’s amazing how much ground you can cover in 52 weeks. While it did not seem like much in electronic form here in the blog, I discovered that I have written a massive amount in 2022.

One of the key goals of the challenge is writing more about your family history, something I felt I had not done much of in the decades in which I have been researching my family history. I had the idea that the blog posts could easily be adapted to some sort of family history book. I’ve undertaken that task, which essentially involves turning each week’s post into document form. I was amazed to learn how many pages I’ve written. As of now, the total number of pages is approaching 200. While I originally intended to print out my work to share it, now I’m thinking the best way to share my “book” with my family is through a pdf.

Postscript: Amy has now posted the themes for 2023! Some weeks look like they’ll take a lot of thought. A few topics bring to mind things I’ve already written about from various angles. No one said it would be easy, but I think it sure will be fun.

Happy New Year and all the best for 2023!