2012 SNGF Genealympics

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to COMPETE in the 2012 SNGF Genealympics. Your effort can extend until Sunday, 12 August.

For these 2012 SNGF Genealympics, the motto is "Research, Cite, Analyze, Resolve, Conclude!"

Competitors can:

1) Perform one or more of the challenges outlined in Announcing the Summer 2008 Genea-Blogger Group Games! Same medal levels.

2) Perform one or more challenges outlined below (created by me on the spur of the moment here!):

a) Design your own Genealympics flag to represent your ancestry, heritage or personal expression. Unfortunately, the custom flagmaking web site used in 2008 is no longer available, and I could find no other free site that did a similar function. It may be easiest to use the Flags of the World site, save the country flags of your choice, and create your own graphic using a graphics program (or any program that will let you import and manipulate images, and save the image for display.

b) Pick any one of your 16 great-great-grandparents, or one of your spouse's 16 great-great-grandparents. How many descendants of that person do you have in your family tree records or database? (Hint, a Descendants Report in your genealogy software should easily provide this number).

Medal Awards:
* Bronze: over 50 descendants
* Silver: over 100 descendants
* Gold: over 150 descendants
* Diamond: over 200 descendants
* Platinum: over 250 descendants

c) Pick one of your ancestral surnames, or one of your spouse's ancestral surnames. How many generations back from the last person with that surname in your ancestry have you researched, identified and accept as your ancestor? [Note: if you are doing your own surname, don't count yourself).

Medal Awards:
* Bronze: at least 4 generations
* Silver: at least 6 generations
* Gold: at least 8 generations
* Diamond: at least 10 generations
* Platinum: at least 12 generations

d) Pick one or more of your end-of-line ancestors (you know, one that you don't know the parent(s) of). Review your collected data, research log, and database and create a Research Plan to do a Reasonably Exhaustive search for the selected ancestor(s).

Medal Awards:
* Bronze: created one research plan
* Silver: created two research plans
* Gold: created three research plans
* Diamond: created four research plans
* Platinum: created five or more research plans

NOTE: This is supposed to be a fun competition, and is based on your word and honor. No drug tests, no judges. The intent is to inspire you to do more research, cite more sources, analyze more data, etc. Bonus points awarded for excellence in humor and style!

3) Whatever you choose to compete in, please tell us about it in your own blog posts, in Facebook Status posts, in Google+ Stream posts, or as a comment to this post. You don't have to post your status or accomplishments on a Saturday Night! Any time is fine! You have until Sunday, 12 August to compete and achieve your medal levels.

4) There will be additional events posted in next week's SNGF. If you have suggestions for more events for these SNGF Genealympics, please pass them on to me in Comments or in email (rjseaver@cox.net). 

I thought I would count my ancestors descendants. Thinking this would be a breeze, I use FTM 2010, I was wrong!

The program does not give a number to all individuals listed. For instance, no one in the final generation was even numbered. [I think I’ve blogged about that before!] Checking online for help didn’t help at all. A genealogy descendant report gave me the same numbering system as the chart did. Many generations listed children simply as i., ii., iii., iv., v., etc.

I have a really lousy photo program… and I haven’t been able to get the layering to function properly to make a flag that I like.

And so I turned to C, and decided to check back on the ancestor with the surname Wiseman. My latest direct ancestor with the name Wiseman was my gr-gr-grandmother, Rachel Wiseman [1790-1856]. From her, I can count back 7 generations to Robert Wiseman [1595 – 1625]. We were able to confirm his marriage just this past week for 1620 in Norfolk, England!

Thanks again Randy for another great SNGF challenge!

Guess this a Silver medal!!!