Time Traveling

Have you all seen the "Back to the Future" movies?  Of course, they were so fun to watch and I know I still like to watch them even now when they are on.  I try to think of ways to get my kids, and grandkids to become interested in their genealogy.  Sometimes it's hard, kind of an "old lady" thing.  But those of you in the know, realize how so "NOT TRUE" that is.  The excitement of finding the missing person is like being a real-life detective, and that is so fun to unravel the puzzle of the threads of their lives that we find in church record, census records, etc.  Where you find a birth for a person given in one record as one year and another record as another year.  Then in one census the wife is Mary and then in the next Anna.  Wow, not always easy, but oh-so rewarding.  When I think of the "Back to the Future" shows, traveling in time, that is how I sometimes feels as I try to imagine what lives were like back in those days and what they experienced.  The history comes into play and it shows the events that took place, some good, many bad and some unrecorded.  It is amazing to think that hundreds of years later, here I am--a product of all those many people that existed before me. 

What habits do I have that are passed on, again probably some good, and some not so---

I love the work that I do.  I love to help people at the Library as they come to the reference counter and I and my co-workers help them read the old records and put flesh on the bones of their family histories.  I have seen some interesting documents in my many years of translating old church records.  Such as the woman picking cherries and then going into labor and having triplets right then and there.  I can't even imagine it.  All alone and doing that! 

And it is almost as fun finding the "black sheep" of the family.  I had a lady many years ago that brought up several documents to translate, each one being a worse ancestor the last one that I read and translated for her.  Finally after the ancestor's stories couldn't get much worse, I said to her "Well, I guess you have found the black sheep in your family", to which she replied, "Oh, it's OK, these are my husband's ancestors!"

So children and grandchildren of mine, this is for you, come join me in finding out the wonderful facts about your most interesting ancestors.  You may find a little of you in some of them.

My New Blog

OK, it is official.  This is my genealogy blog.  Nothing about my immediate family and daily doings.  This is just my research or my work at the Library. So for anyone who wants to read that, please send me an email and I will get you on the reading list.  This blog is open and I hope that I will find some genealogy friends that like to read only that topic.  So I  have moved over all my previous genealogy entries and at this point will now start with fresh happenings.  But right now this is all because I am exhausted!

What is a Genealogist Without a CEMETERY???

 OK, I am a genealogist right?  So when I am on vacation where might you find me??  Yeah, that's right!
Well, this year for Halloween I have my own cemetery in the front yard.  I should have taken the pics in the daytime, but hey, what's better than a cemetery at night to get into the real feel of the atmosphere??

Going to Try It Again or "Under Construction"

Well, I have a personal blog and it got spammed or hacked or something.  But I was not quite happy to be private so I am doing all my genealogical findings here on a separate place.  Hope that this works and doesn't get messed up like the last time!