New Year's Resolutions for Genealogy 2018

 2017 was another great year in Genealogy. I'm hoping for at least a few more solutions to brickwall lines in 2018. With many people receiving DNA test kits for the holidays there should be some interesting matches surfacing soon. Ancestry sold 1.5 million kits over Black Friday weekend.

The solution to many of my remaining brickwalls is likely to come from the FamilySearch microfilms now being digitized. I'm going to unsubcribe from Ancestry soon. I might subscribe to their trees only. All of the most useful information is now coming from FamilySearch, for my particular areas that is. 

1. Something I'm still aching to have is a picture, or pictures, of my Great-Grandparents Frank Kappel and Mary Kurta.

2. We need a Y DNA study to confirm our relationship to the Maryland Browning families.   My late mother and one of her 1rst cousins had an interest in learning more about their Grandmother Isis Browning's family. There is quite a bit of information on this family, a study done in Indiana and several books about the family. In spite of all the research that has been done there are still gaps in our documented evidence which requires DNA to get around.
Right now there is a small Y DNA Browning project for the US Brownings, and a larger one for UK Brownings.

 
 
3. I'm visiting Indiana this Spring and hoping to find documents that will breakdown my brickwall on the Campbell line and maybe find a Browning to take the Y DNA test?

4. Find out approximately when early families arrived in America, namely the Brownings, Wrays, Morrises, and Thurmans. A goal of my genealogy research has also been establishing when the ancestors first arrived in America. I have good evidence stating when the German ancestors arrived in America. The British Isles ancestors are much harder to nail down. I only have contemporary tax lists and other documents with dates which can be used to establish when a family was in America. There were families with my surnames in America in the 1600's, but I have not been able to establish whether we are related?

5. Prove English ancestry. I've always hoped to find some English ancestry. I do have Scottish ancestry, but have no proven English ancestry. It does look like Browning is English. The Y DNA test could confirm that?
I had thought the Melvins and Reddons on my father's side might have been English, but many have posted that evidence points to Scottish origins. I'm not sure about Hicks? Since the Hicks family originally settled on the frontier in North Carolina they could also have Scottish origins?

I've toured England twice and really love it.

6. A Del Castillo Y DNA study would be great also.

7. I need to get up to speed on the BigY this year. I haven't analyzed those results enough. 

I've whittled down my brickwall list over the years. If I could get a few more solved that would be wonderful!