And now for something completely different
This week’s prompt for Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors Challenge might be “In The Beginning”, but as I enter the fourth go-around (after two earlier failed attempts), the Challenge is hardly new to me anymore. In fact, as I wrote last week, my participation in the Challenge has begun to result in diminishing returns. Looking at the list of this year’s prompts, I see many topics on which I’ve already written – some of which I think I’ve exhausted. So this year I’m going to do something different.
This year I’m going to be literal with the “52 Ancestors” challenge and write about 52 ancestors, a different one each week. I’m also going to frame it around the playing-cards theme I established with the title A Deck of Ancestors and my very first post of this blog in January 2022, More Than A Full Deck.
I have selected 52 ancestors that I have divided into four suits, with each suit starting with my great grandparents and working my way back to all of my great great great grandparents. In order to have 13 cards for each suit, I’m treating each married couple of great grandparents as a single card. I’m afraid I wasn’t very creative in making up the suits. I simply went with the initial of the surname of each of my great grandfathers, so the suits are “V”, “K”, “B”, and “L”. The cards for each suit match the colours I assigned to each of those lines in my RootsMagic database.
The four suits, with the number of each person within their suit.
The only downside to this plan is that I have a wealth of information for the individuals who fall within the lower numbers of each suit, while I have very little for many of those who are at the higher numbers. I already know weeks 51 and 52 will probably be incredibly short posts.
That said, I see a few of the prompts for the 2025 Challenge are either relatively new to me. Others might be repeats, but I still have plenty of ideas for them. As a result, from time to time I might jump back into the Challenge as set up for this year, and create entries for those prompts that truly inspire me.
Happy 2025 and Happy 52 Ancestors Challenge!
A Deck of Ancestors 
I love this idea. I, too, have been doing this challenge for seven years, and sometimes it’s hard to come up with something fresh on a theme. I do research both my side and my husband’s, so I have twice the number of people to work with. Question: Are you doing a suit at a time until it’s exhausted? Or something else?
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I could imaging that after doing the challenge for seven years, the tank is likely running pretty dry!! Looking at the prompts for what is my fourth year, I’m already pretty stumped when it comes to fresh material.
I will be going through each suit sequentially. I guess that means each quarter of the year is dedicated to one suit. I’ll also be working my way through the suits as shown in the graphic from top to bottom, so Q1 is V, Q2 is K, Q3 is B, and Q4 is L. I briefly thought of doing all the 1s, then the 2s, and so on, because the posts for the last 8 Ls will likely be very brief. However, I think it’s just easier to keep track by going through each suit sequentially.
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I think that makes the most sense. You’ll be on a roll and when done. you can say you’ve finished one quarter of your ancestry!
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