As I've been working for the Unemployment Insurance Department for over twenty years, it is ingrained in me to run my weeks Monday through Sunday, as we do at work; accordingly, the dates above. This week I have been concentrating on the Erwin branch of the family. I'm not as far along as I'd hoped for two reasons: 1) this week at work was high stress, which because of my gastroparesis, tends to eat into my energy reserves and by the end of the week I was exhausted, and didn't get on the computer to dive back into my research until Sunday evening; and 2) there is a gracious plenty of information about the Erwins in Illinois and, just before that, in Indiana, and there are a whole bunch of them, with repeating family names. I am going fairly slowly to try to make sure I have the correct people in my tree, and the correct information attached to the correct person.
I did a post mid-week on Eli Erwin because I was so excited to have found his muster papers. I am now back to his & John's father, Crawford (who apparently greatly preferred being married to being single as he had three wives and did not go more than a year without one after each of the first two died) and his grandfather, William, with hints that I might get to his great grandfather, (in NC, maybe William, again) if I can sort out who belongs to whom as there appear to be even more Erwins in NC in the late 1700s - early 1800s than there are in Indiana and Illinois in later years.
I believe I'm going to have to let go of my goal of having finished this pass through Mom's side of the family before I see her next given that I haven't even reached her Dad's side of the family yet. Sorry, Mom.
As this is a three day weekend for me, I hope to get another Ancestor Highlight up sometime tomorrow (Monday). Long term, one of my personal goals is to truly flesh out my female ancestors as best I can, as women tend to get lost in history and I don't want them to get lost in our family history; but I have to acknowledge that at this early stage my highlights are definitely male-centric. This is because there is more documentation about men, particularly if there's a war (and additionally the male Erwins have managed to get themselves into several early county history books in Illinois and Indiana [which, serendipitously, are available as free, searchable, ebooks through Google books*]). I will probably get more about the women in the family on the next pass through the research and I will highlight the women when I can. But the next Ancestor Highlight is likely to be about a man again.
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*If you have any desire to read these county histories yourself, contact me, or say so in the comments, and I'll list the books so you can find them yourself.
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