Relics: Genealogy, family stories, history & other curiosities.

Long time, no write!   As the year draws to a close, I have been thinking a lot about the discoveries I have made during the course of the year and the brick walls I have been able to poke some holes in.   Work and real life have gotten in the way and I haven't been able to write very much over this year, but I have been making some progress in my research.   I was spending some of my research time today thinking about where I need and want to go from here.  Is 2017 the year of my do-over?  I have been reading about different ways of recording and organizing my information . I learned a lot reading and rereading Kerry Scott's book H ow to Use Ever note for Genealo gy. It is revolutioni zing my or g ani zing!    I have been reviewing notes and research, sorting through filled notebooks in the hope of creating a  game plan for next year and I was pleased and surprised by the amount of surnames I now consider mine. I counted 45! ...

October is Family History Month.  My first thought upon learning this is, isn't every month?!   Seriously though, this reminder is the perfect opportunity to reboot my genealogy.  As I said in my very first post here, I have been working on my family tree for ten years. I have notebooks filled with notes scribbles, binders  of yellowed newspaper clippings, and lots of old photos of people and places I don't recognize. It is time to get organized. Lofty Goals- I have to admit its a little overwhelming.  There has been more than one day in the last month that I wanted to stay home from work to just work on my genealogy.   I have been working hard to create my tree on the Ancestry site since I sent off my DNA.  I have 80 pages of matches!  I don't know if I will ever be able to get through it all.  There is so much I want to do. There are classes to take, timelines to create, notes to revisit and most importantly I want to review all the i...