New Website and Social Media alert!!

 So I started a thing...

I started my own Genealogy and Family History resource website.  It is a place for people to go and get lots of tips and tricks and ideas. It talks about different research resources you can use, how to get involved, and different aspects of family history that is more than just filling in the names and dates on a pedigree chart.  I decided to call it "preserve your tree", because in doing your family history and genealogy, you are preserving your family tree for generations to come. It really is about finding out who your ancestors were as a whole person, and not just a name and date on a chart. It's about immersing yourself in their life and history to help you discover where you came from and how that has shaped you as a person!  I did a website, an Instagram and a facebook group.

The website is called Preserve Your Tree

Instagram:  Preserveyourtree

Facebook Group (Public)  Preserve Your Tree.

WHY???

I have been doing family history and genealogy for 35 years. It started when I was young and we had a little class on it in my girls church group.  We had to complete a 4 generation Pedigree chart, and it set something off in my brain.  I remember having my mom help me and she pulled out some letters from her cousin that talked about her side of the family, and pulled out the genealogy folder from my aunt that talked about my dads side of the family, and we went through and started plugging names in.  I remember thinking just how cool it was. It only went back 4 generations, but thats when I got the bug!  I consulted with my best friend who was also doing the chart, and she said that her parents were able to get all the way back to the 1500s.  I was so jealous I couldn't see straight.  I couldn't get back that far, and boy did I want to! 

I remember being a young teenager, when we went to Tennessee and visited the area where my moms relatives had settled. We went to the large library and sat and scrolled through microfilm, looking through the C.S.A records, and census records and just ANYTHING we could get our hands on to try and find SOMEONE!   I remember as a young married woman, going to the main library in Cincinnati with my mother in law and scrolling through hours of microfilm, again just hoping to find SOMETHING on some of my more elusive ancestors.  I remember taking my mother in law to a local church and cemetery in North Carolina because she knew from land records thats where her great great grandfather had settled during the revolutionary war.  We went into the church building and there were a few gentlemen there who were genealogy consultants for that church and the one man and my mother in law had ancestors that had dealings with each other and possibly cousin connections!   I remember going on to ancestry and family search and putting in my great grandmothers name HOPING for ANYTHINGG, and seeing that green leaf pop up and opening up and there was the census record with her on it. The census record I had never been able to find!  I found her mother and father and their death records!  I found military records and things I never dreamed of being able to find.

I remember doing research on my German side and finding an address on a certificate of my ancestor.  I looked it up and there was a photo of his bakery and house!  I was also able to find a picture of him, and as the photo uploaded I felt almost this sense of relief, and I thought I heard a whisper say "you found me!".  I thought "my dad has his eyes"! 

I also remember back in the day of PAF files and Gedcom software merging my husbands genealogy records with mine and we did a duplicates search.  I remember that sense of dread when we both had a Mary Jane Smith as one of our direct great grandparents, and I just KNEW that somehow I had married my cousin, ad that whole southern stereotype was true!! Not to worry,  turns out they were NOT the same woman, just had the same name. PHEW! 

I started indexing so I could help others have the records online and be able to experience the joys of doing genealogy.

I have kept up with genealogy and I have watched people make mistakes. I have felt the frustration in my research, I have hit the brick walls.  But I have also had the breakthroughs, and  I love it.   I want to help others to love it and be part of the fastest growing hobby! 

So head on over and check it out, follow me on IG and join the FB group!  I would love to help you get the most out of your research as possible!!