Genealogical Research is Fun!

Genealogy is an extremely fun hobby.  Even though I only dabble in it from time to time, its amazing to learn all the stuff that happened for you to get born.  In the end, you never know what you’ll find.  I know some people that branch way out and find links to celebrities, or famous people in their past.  I know, I was hoping to find a link to a very infamous family secret....

Luckily its very easy to get started, Ancestry.com is a great place, and its pretty much free.  Sure you can pay for more access to stuff, but the main thing is the family tree maker, and that is most definitely free.  After that, its all about searching and cross referencing.  Its hard not to feel the joy of searching through history, and finding links to other people, making the tree bigger and bigger.


Sometimes you run in to roadblocks.  I know when I was researching Lisa’s tree, there is a HUGE roadblock.  A man named James Lawson, died in 1864, he was hung in his front yard by bushwackers during the civil war.  What makes him an enigmatic road block, is that its very unclear how he got to Crawford County, Arkansas, or where exactly he came from.  His birth date is in debate on many forums, as well as where he was born.  The community he was living in, was settled by people from a certain area, but did he come in on that wagon train, was he picked up along the way, or was he already there, as the place bears his last name...?

My own tree had its own set of crazy surprises.  One of which was my great-grandfather, left his wife during the great depression.  We know very little about him, we can’t even find when and where he died.  He just vanishes after that point.  Not much was known in the family history, but when I went and researched, it was VERY easy to find his parents, and not only that, it was amazingly easy to trace that line of family not only back to before they came to America, but well beyond that.  Out of all the people I researched in the family, the guy that vanishes off the map, no clue where he went, had the easiest traceable family line....

I’ve been away from all the genealogical research for awhile, been concentrating mainly on the blog, but every now and then, I feel like I really want to get back to it.  There’s such an interesting history throughout the past that its almost addicting.  Especially when there’s a mystery.

Admittedly, this kind of thing isn’t for everyone, but I definitely recommend it, because its quite fun.  Lisa and I was able to prove her link to Gene Autry, even if it is an odd link.  I was never able to prove the whole ‘family secret’ we keep, but we still hold out hope.  Anyways, if you go hunting, then happy hunting!  If not, uhm....hi!

–Dan