Our Journey to the past!

I am starting this blog to mostly rant about this, that and the other. But really about our genealogical journey.

I am scrapbooker. I love to scrap. One day a few weeks ago, I was making a family tree for my boys scrapbooks. I asked some pretty easy questions about grandparents, that should have been pretty easy to answer since many of them are still with us. So I set out on a GOOGLE quest to see if I could find something and ran across someone's genealogical tree with my husband's name in. This not only answered my question but got me thinking how much more information is out there in the high tech world of internet.

So what started out as an innocent little search has blossomed into a hobby that now has sparked a family interest. My mother and my husband are now working with me to solve the mysteries of the past. Even our boys get into the talk sometimes.

One of websites we frequent is www.ancestry.com . This is a great site until you find something you want to look at and then you have to pay for it. So we broke down and bought a subscription. We now have a family tree on there that is viewable to the public. Don't worry- if you are still alive your name appears as Living and it doesn't show any other information unless I invite you to become a member. One of the coolest parts about ancestory.com is that when you enter someone on your tree sometimes you get a leaf. It's very exciting to get a leaf. It means that there is more information to see about that person that ancestory.com has found for you. Most of the time you have to have a lot of information about that person to get this leaf. When you see that leaf blinking at you, your heart races and you can't wait to click on it and find something out. Most of the time, you don't get a leaf. So that is why this blog's name has to do with leaves. Finding the leaves from our past!

So on this journey, I have come across some marvelous sites, some free and some not, but the best one is www.findagrave.com. I believe this to be the best site in the world and I signed up to be a photo volunteer. I have always loved looking at old cemeteries and wondering about the stories that the old stones could tell. Who knew this interest would someday serve a purpose! Now this interest is spilling over into my boys. Someday, I hope that I can help you find clues to tearing down your brickwalls even if it's just one brick at a time.

Another great website is the free side of ancestry.com called www.rootsweb.com . This is an amazing site because this is where everyone posts their family trees for public viewing. I will be posting ours in the next few days and I will post a link on here so you can see it. If you go down to the middle of the page there is a link called World Connect Project Main Page. This is the link that lets you search all the family trees. You just type in a name and away it goes. I have found lots of information on here with just a name but sometimes you can't aways trust what you read. Unfortunately some of these people just copy other's work and don't ever prove what they publish. We don't work that way. We do not believe anything until we can prove it!

But the most valuable information comes from county records. Books on cemetery listings and birth and marriage records. This research must be done in libraries. Someday, I believe our grandchildren will not know what a library is because everything will be electronic. There will come a day when all those dusty old books will be record and viewed online just like alot of this information is today. I can only wish to see that day, but for now, I resign myself to spend yet another quiet day at the library - searching for a leaf!

We are new at this and know that we have so far to go, but in the short time we have been doing this we have come to realize that these small acts of genealogical kindness are just what everyone needs to help them "SPROUT LEAVES" on their ancestorial trees!

May your tree be fruitful and sprout!
Amy