One of my mama’s very favorite things to do was research our genealogy. Lands, she had boxes of handwritten notes and charts and graphs. She had books that were dedicated to different branches of our family tree. And she was on a first-name basis with the librarians in town who helped her do research. Oh, she loved it so. She gathered a bunch of her direct line and made a little booklet. She copied them off and sold them to family member for the price of the copying. She was so proud of it, and everyone still has their copies.
When the internet came along, I took over looking things up for her as best I could. The pickin’s were slim early on. Then Ancestry came along. When Mr. Virgo and I were married and he watched TV in the evening, I sat with my laptop every night, searching for my roots. Mom was gone by that time and I’m telling you what, she would have been blown away at what I’ve been able to accomplish. Then, Mr. Virgo died…and I lost my desire. To do a lot of things, not the least of which was having the concentration to do research.
I let my subscription to Ancestry lapse eight years ago. I looked at it every once in a while and watched the hints pile up, but you can’t make any changes unless you pay for it. When I finished copying the Facebook posts over to my website and balanced my checkbook, I decided to rejoin and see what it’s all about now. Oh my gosh…what a change! The sheer number of resources available, and others who have built their own trees and done their own research makes it a lot easier to get information.
I did the DNA test several years ago and it is absolutely amazing how you can connect with people who share your ancestor’s genes. I’ve heard of some downsides to that…people finding surprise family members or finding out maybe THEY were the surprise. One of the fun things is finding stories about people you may be related to, based on DNA and the research of others. One that popped up for me was Abraham Lincoln, believe it or not. And, I have several ancestors linked to passengers on the Mayflower.
When you think about it, there were FAR fewer people in the world back in those days, and the Mayflower was a “captive audience”, so to speak. It’s not terribly hard to track yourself back to people of some repute….ill or otherwise. I remember one time, I found an ancestor who had stolen a pig. They took him to court, but he got off because, you know…they ate the evidence. You might think that would be the last of the drama, but the pig thief got into a scuffle a couple of years later with that same sheriff and one of them didn’t make it out alive, unfortunately. Hint…I’m not related to the law enforcement officer.
I have found my new activity to do when Mr. FixIt watches his television shows. It’s kind of a full circle event…it feels like it’s the right time to get back into it. I can certainly tell my mental faculties aren’t quite the same as they were back when I did this before. But hopefully, when the parathyroid surgery is over, that will improve. In the meantime, I’m going to have some fun with this and see what I can learn about this big fat family tree of mine.
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“So my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials and the common people for registration by families. I found the genealogical record of those who had been the first to return. This is what I found written there:”
Nehemiah 7:5 NIV