Beginning The Climb

    Genealogy is more popular today than ever.  With the availability of information on the Internet and inexpensive genealogy software, anyone can sit in their recliner and start tracking their roots.  Well, if you have thought about tracing your family or are in the process of tracing your family, I think you will find this blog helpful and informative.

    I began tracing my family genealogy more than twenty seven years ago.  A seventy year old engineer that I worked with told me that his wife was tracing their family history.  I told him that I was interested but had no idea how to start.  I met with his wife and was hooked.

    At that time everything was manual.  I started my genealogy adventure by filling out a family group sheet. On that sheet I put the information about myself, my wife and my children.  It included things like birth dates and locations and marriage date and location.  It also had a place for my parents names and my wife's parents.  The next step was to fill out a family group sheet for each of our parents.  As I got into this process I realized I did not know some of the information.  The true fun of genealogy was about to begin.

    How many of you enjoy 'CSI' or 'Murder She Wrote' ?  If you enjoy trying to figure out a mystery or solve a crime, you will love genealogy.  If you like history, genealogy will give you a inside view and personal perspective that will change your opinions of the past, forever.  To be a successful genealogist you must become part private investigator, part historian, and part data analyst.

    The purpose of this blog is to share the twenty seven years of successes and pitfalls in researching my family genealogy.  I will discuss data gathering, research, compiling data, software, and many tips that should save you hundreds of hours or research.  Currently my family tree has nearly four thousand members on it.  While collecting all those names I have met wonderful people and laughed myself into tears.  I hope you will follow my future posts and take this journey with me up the family tree.