Rating my efforts

I started my family tree looking for a 5th great-grandmother. She was the first wife of a man whose grandfather was a German iron worker. He and a community of friends came from Siegen, Germany to Virginia in 1714, escaping religious persecution. The Catholics were doing the persecuting in that part of Germany then. Their church was German Reformed. I think that religious institutions is/was more closely related to John Calvin than Martin Luther?  

Anyway, my 5th great grandfather Jesse (1759-1843) had 9 children with his first wife, and 7 children with his second wife.  The first wife is mine. I want to know her and claim her. I swear I've been looking for her for at least 30 years.  

I suspect her name was Mary, based on the recurrence of the name in her children's family. I've been chasing surnames related to family from that time looking for her. It was an obsession. I've slacked off a bit, accepting the limitations of female records 1700s, but I still get excited when I find a woman born the appropriate time in either Fauquier Co, Virginia, or Rowan County, North Carolina.  

My tree is large. In April it had close to 64,000 people in it. Yeah, I know. Because of my large ego, original intent, and frenetic searching techniques I didn't bother documenting "married-in" people were only markers. My documentation efforts were spent on people who I actually descended from, and their families.  

Recently ancestry.com instituted a rating system. I was dismayed to find my tree only rated a 7.9 on April 3, 2025. I had 4,104 dupes, 33,939 with only other tree references to back them up, 6,964 entries with no documentation, and 2,626 errors. Sheesh. So embarrassing.

I've since committed to documenting the undocumented, merging dupes, and paying attention to errors. As of the July 11th update I've brought the rating to 8.5. Now I only have 3200 dupes, 25,000 tree only, 4,558 no documentation, and 2,502 errors. Slow going!

It is impossible to get reliable documentation for some, especially women, and children who died young. However, I won't give up until my tree has a 9.1 rating. That seems reasonable for such a large, wide-ranging family tree. Obsessive seems to be my middle name.

This is the oldest tree in my town

4th of July

We are having the family over for a bbq today.  The usual 4th of July fare, hamburgers and potato salad.  There will be side dishes, of course.  Daughter M requested cosmopolitans and who am I to disagree?  There's nothing better than a pink drink.

I fell in my garden yesterday trying to cut back spent cannas. This is the rainy season in Central Florida and the ground is mushy.  I was barefoot and couldn't maintain my balance.  I fell slowly and fully aware of the ridiculousness of it, right into the cannas.  Then I had more to prune, as so many stems were broken.  I fell on my right arm and now it hurts.  Not so badly that I can't still cook and clean for company.  Oh well.  

I am so not proud of the Divided States of America right now.  But I live in hope, with a side of fear.