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TRP News - 01 January 2021

January 2021 - Happy New Year

Happy New Year

                  by MartinB
We hope that you had an enjoyable Christmas (although for many it wasn't the Christmas you had perhaps hoped for) and wish you a Healthy and Happy 2021.

The observant will notice I'm writing this section under a "by line" which I don't customarily do. But 2020 has been such a strange year and I want to make abundantly clear this is a very personal retrospective of 2020 and it does not represent the formal view(s) of The Reeves Project or others associated with TRP.

I think its fair to say 2020 has been an interesting/strange/unusual year and I'm sure there are many other words which you might equally apply. Whether you're normally a "glass half full" or "glass half empty" sort of person, its been a very different year. I remember reading early in the year that "the light at the end of the tunnel had been temporarily turned off" which made me smile. The news during December 2020 that the first vaccine (outside of Russia and China) had been approved for general use has, to my mind, very definitely turned that light back on. We have collectively a way to go yet to reach the end of this tunnel, but its now inching closer.

Our experiences in 2020 have been very different. Some will be grieving the loss of a loved one taken by the virus... Lock-down/stay at home orders have been imposed on most of us to a greater or lessor extent. But we also need to recognise that other factors significantly influenced the impact on each of us. For those in the northern hemisphere, the first peak during March/April/May of 2020 meant we could look forward to the warmer days of summer and the opportunity to spend those summer days in our gardens or at least out-of-doors (weather permitting). In the southern hemisphere, they were looking forward to shorter, cooler days as their winter approached. On the positive side, we've learnt new skills or refined existing ones in areas as diverse as home schooling, working from home and video calling. And phrases such as "social distancing" have come into common use.

TRP has not been immune from the effects of Covid-19. From April onward we've seen a noticeable up-tick in the number of our pages being accessed each day/week/month. A few pages in particular have seen a huge amount of interest; we speculate that at least one featured in a home-schooling lesson.

2020 has been a busy year here at The Reeves Project and again fortunately one without any significant technical hiccups. We're grateful to Jonathan for his efforts in applying three minor upgrades to the wiki software underpinning TRP during the course of the year. During the year we have collectively added 1120 new pages, just shy of the 1157 added during 2019 . Of those new pages 486 have a page name starting with the letter "R" and probably represent a new R*v*(s) ancestor being added. And many hundreds of existing person pages will have been updated with new information during the past year.

If you have a little spare time, please do re-engage with TRP. We'd appreciate your help in telling the story of R*v*(s) ancestors.

Wiki Stats - End December 2020

The total number of pages in the Wiki (as at 1 January 2021) now stands at 10670 (previously 10641, 10591, 10500) an increase of 29 pages during the month. Of the total, 2040 pages (was 2040, 2035, 2012) begin with a number and are most probably a date related gleaning.     We currently have 4585 wiki pages categorised as "People", of which 4079 begin with the letter "R".

Community members should log in to see more.


TRP Users

We ended December 2020 with 448  459 user accounts registered in TRP, an increase of three over the previous month. .   We had just one user then go on to successfully activated their account during the past month. We welcome to our community Brian R.

Whether you joined TRP recently or a while ago, if you have yet to do so, please set a meaningful name for yourself as described in First Steps - Part 1. It isn't difficult and only takes a couple of minutes to do. If it helps, think of it as a name label badge; so your first name plus surname (or at least surname initial) would generally be a good choice. You'll find links to the remainder of the our six part First Steps as part of the FAQ - First Steps.

If you have already started the enrolment process and are having issues, please do let us know. Please contact New User Admin by sending an email to TRP123 (at) TheReevesProject (dot) org if you're stuck and need help. If you are not yet a member and would like to contribute to our community, please complete our Join Us form to start the membership enrolment process.

Reeves DNA Project Update

The final quarter of 2020 has been much quieter than the previous quarter; we had just one new member join the Reeves DNA project. That brings the total at the end of December to 368. Early in October we welcomed Richard Reeves to the Reeves DNA Project.

During the past quarter we've received no notifications pertaining to new results for Y-DNA Donor members. We've seen one new Family Finder result and no new mt-DNA results for Reeves DNA Project members during the past quarter. The results from a handful of upgrades have also been received.

As admins we see a vast number of new match (as distinct from new result) notifications every month. One on Christmas eve in particular caught our eye. Both members of our most recent DNA Group 21 (surnames Revie & Reevie) had a close Y37 DNA match with an individual who is not a member of our project and who is known by the surname Reeves. Beverly has reached out to this individual and we hope he will come and join our project.

Year End Summary

Whilst the past quarter has been quieter than normal, across the whole of 202o we've welcomed 22 new members to the Reeves DNA Project during 2020.

At the end of 2020, the project has 227 members who have taken some level of Y-DNA test, an increase of 11 over the past year. Of these, 193 are tests of a Y-37 or higher resolution. The Y-37 test is now considered the entry level Y-DNA test within this project to allow matching to be undertaken with reasonable certainty. If you currently only have results for a Y-12 or Y-25 test, we suggest you consider upgrading to at least the Y-37 level. Its always worth checking to see if upgrades are included in the FtDNA sales.... Note however, upgrades beyond Y-111 tend not to represent value for money within our project, unless you are actively working closely with other cousins.

During the year we added one new DNA Group, Group 21 mentioned above.

Activity Feed Accessibility

Historically the Activity Feed of the Reeves DNA Project at FtDNA https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/reeves/activity-feed# has been visible to anybody without the need to sign in to a user account at FtDNA.

We are aware that, since just prior to 8 December, it has been necessary to sign in to FtDNA to see the content of the Activity Feed. This is not a change we have (consciously) made and believe its the result of a global configuration change made by FtDNA. We prefer that the Activity Feed be visible to everybody without the need to sign in to a user account at FtDNA since a casual reader may decide to become an active member. We've reported the matter to FtDNA and await their response.


If you missed last quarter's summary the DNA Project Update for 3q2020 is available here.




Contributors to this page: MartinB. .
Page last modified on Monday 01 of February, 2021 06:27:02 CST by MartinB..