Mood:
mischieviousTopic: Genealogy
So I've been on this journey to find my "roots" for the last (almost) 8 years. Mind you, stories about my ancestors have always dotted my life. This is one of those "wish I would have listened more to my grandmother" type things - or at least asked her many more questions. Or told her to write the names of the people on the backs of the pictures! If you poke around on my website, I have a genealogy page called All My Branches which has generated a lot of emails from distant cousins, relatives and whole assortment of folks wondering if I have info on "their" line. I consider myself very lucky that I'm not one of those "don't know you, don't want to" type of people. Hey - you're related! How cool is that!
Anyway the point of this post is actually to give you a hint as to what I've been up to the last few days. Finally starting to put all my genealogy paperwork into some semblance of order. Right now I have files with each of my branches stuff into them. Next I'll go through those and weed them down even further - censuses, death certificates, newspaper articles, etc.
Now back to those photos I referenced above - my mother has given me tons of old photos that she got after my grandparents died. Luckily she knows most of the people in them so that was a major help! Unfortunately there are some that she thinks they might be related - but not sure how - and others are just "friends" of my grandparents and she doesn't know who they are.
My husband (bless his everloving heart) indulges me - through humor - about my hobby. Though there have been times when I hear him mutter "we'll need another wing to hold all this stuff". As we were driving through the midwest last summer, I saw a billboard touting the wonders to be found in Rush County, Indiana. Smart mouth that I am, said "Hey I know people buried there!" Never missing a beat, hubby turns to me and asks - "And do you speak with them often?" When he notices me doing more research, he asks "Back to the dead people again?"
No, I'll never learn exactly who some of my ancestors are & when I keep hitting brick walls, it can be a struggle to keep going. That's usually the point when I stop for awhile and concentrate on other things. Over the last few weeks, I've heard from a couple of cousins I never knew existed and one who I hadn't heard from in a couple years. And then I know - this quest makes it all worthwhile!
So what did you do over the weekend?
