Monday, January 02, 2012

How has your study grown this year?

That was the question posed on the Forum at the end of last year. I don’t currently keep statistics on the Parry study (mental note to do so in the future!). However, I do keep a list of all communication, so I can tell from that, that I had 20 new Parry related contacts over the course of 2011. That’s down on previous years (26 in 2010, 31 in 2009 and over 50 in each the two years before that). Although that might be a sign of less people researching, I suspect much of the reason for the reduction is my own lack of activity.

It is good to take stock occasionally of how the study has progressed – even when it serves as a reminder of things that haven’t yet been achieved (after all, I’m even less likely to do something if I don't remember it!) And, although I may not have managed to write about these events at the time, during 2011 the probable author of the pedigree sheets from Hereford library was identified, I learnt that there is evidence the Allington Parry family used the “fess and three lozenges” coat of arms and therefore linked themselves to the Herefordshire “Golden Valley” family, and Parry entries were collected from numerous sources (sometimes unexpectedly, as when the archaeology group visited a local museum to look at the roman collection, but browsed the social history exhibits as well, turning up three Parrys for me).

2012 has made a promising start, with both a new Herefordshire Parry contacting me and someone joining the Parry DNA project (not actually a Parry but, with the low numbers involved in the project so far, I welcome any interest.) So, instead of just causing me to look back, the main result of asking the question has been a positive thought – the opportunities are there for 2012, so how am I going to make the best use of them, in order to progress the study?

No comments:

Post a Comment