I've created this blog to share my family's stories, at least some of them. There are a lot of stories to share. Doing this builds family. Maybe my family will read them and pass them along. It may hold us together better. And maybe I'll find relatives I don't know I have.
Once I retired from a nine-to-five job to take up my academic research in earnest, I started doing genealogy research as well, and for the past year, it has trumped my academic searching. Now I'm addicted to hunting and gathering names and dates, vital information. My mother had taken it on, too, prior to her retirement, and steadily built her charts over twenty years. She was building on her cousin's work. I, in turn, am building on hers. This is what a family does, builds itself on our shoulders. A family tree house.
A few years back, I briefly worked with a woman, with whom I found some rapport and things in common. We stayed in touch infrequently, as we could in the midst of our busy lives. In this past few years, both of us, independent of each other, gravitated to family research. And we have found that we are cousins in multiple lines, descended from some of the same families. In this past year, I have found many more cousins, some distant, some close.
Some of them have helped me build my family tree house over the past year and showed me which of the ropes/family lines to swing on. My thanks for this go particularly to Patrick Jones (http://jonesandrelated.blogspot.com/) and Norm Pritchett, who were so very helpful when I was first coming up to speed.
