Sunday, May 30, 2010

Introduction

I have been interested in my family tree for quite some time. I guess it started with being interested about stories of my maternal grandpa. We were very close, but he passed away while I was very young, so I was not able to hear his stories directly from him.

Lately, I have gotten more and more interested in researching my genalogy. I traced a few generations for a project/paper in a history class while I was in college, and of course, now I can't find any of that information or the paper I wrote. Also, my mom copied a book of my Great Aunt's that has quite a bit of history of my grandfather's family tree. I have moved that copied book so many times, trying to find a good home for it until I finally started doing some family history work. I just moved it a week or two before they started a Family History Class at church, and now I can't find it anywhere! How frustrating is that? It's been under foot for years and now that I am ready for it, it's lost! I would go tear apart all the boxes in the garage but a pregnant woman on a rickety ladder is not a good idea. So despite enjoying class each week I have been a bit discouraged since I can't find the resources I have, and my family lives six hours away, so I can't gather the resources they have either until I can get over there. I just want to spend hours on the phone with Mom, but I know it would be much easier to wait until I can talk to my Grandma and Great Aunt in person.

Today in church we talked about sources for information in my FH class, then the third block was about FH as well. One sister read her first entry from her FH blog that explained how she got in to genalogy work and that is where the idea for this blog came from. Hopefully it will motivate me to keep working, keep searching, and keep reporting. The stories shared during that thrid hour were inspirational. They always make me want to work harder and have experiences like that. One brother commented on similar feelings, but added that those sotries weren't his stories. He then went on to say that we can each have our own if we are willing to put forth the effort. I really liked his quote, and it's the one at the top of the page. I feel like it has a double meaning. On one hand it means we can each have these wonderful experiences of finding information, being lead or directed and things just working out miraculously. On the other hand, it seems to say that as we fill in all these blanks in our family history and find out about our ancestry, we are writing our story of who we are.

So come with me as I dig into my past, on my mother's side. I'm not sure how often I will post, or if this will be a successful blog for me. I hope that I get my tush in gear, but being the mom to a toddler with another baby on the way, I may get distracted, or fall asleep at the keyboard. But with any luck, each new discovery will reenergize me enough to get to the next and I will keep on truckin'. And like Brother W said, "With a little bit of work, we each can have our own story."