Sunday, January 24, 2010

Family History Expo



After spending 2 full days at the Arizona Family History Expo my mind is buzzing and I can not get to sleep. The big topic this weekend was Genealogy Blogs and how they can help with searching for your ancestors. While I laid in bed trying to go to sleep my brain was telling me all the things I need to do. How much work my line needs and how much facts I have to clean up in my files. Most important the thought came to me how happy my ancestors would be if we were linked together. I had this picture of people before me and people after me all surrounding me, and of lines connecting us. I'm the pivotal point.


The biological truth is I'm the end of the line. I only have step children and they have no obligation to do my genealogy work. I have known for a long time that the buck stops here. I'm the first person in my family to want to do Genealogy and I will be the last, unless their is a miracle and one of my step kids wants to work on my genealogy. One can never tell there are miracles in the world.


I have dabbled for years. I started when I joined the LDS church in 1977. I asked my Dad some questions about my mothers and his parents. His reply was, "They are dead you don't need to know about them. All you need to know about your mothers is I would I have loved to be married to either one of them for all my life." My mother died 1 week before my first birthday, my mom died 1 week before my 17th birthday. More on them on another day. Then life was busy a mission, a move across country, a marriage, a divorce, another marriage, step kids, work, life. You know how it goes.


In fall of 2008 I attended my first Family Expo and was bitten again with the bug but still didn't really do any work on my stuff. In fall of 2009 I took an 12 week class at the Mesa Regional Family History Library (MRFHL). I'm getting warmer. I started taking classes because I'm hoping to retire next year and I want to gear up to do more research. Then this weekend another expo and right now I feel on fire. I just hope the fire doesn't burn out, I hope it stays constant.


I'm setting goals to help.
Sunday afternoon work on cleaning up the information I now have.
Thursdays take the British Isle training class for 8 weeks.
After class go to the MRFHL one night a week.
Blog and check out blogs to learn new stuff
Join a message board and a mailing list.


I feel better now, and I should be able to sleep now, I have started. One small step for me and my ancestors.

3 comments:

  1. Welcome to the geneablogging world,Mary.
    I look forward to reading more about
    your family lines.

    Bill

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  2. Welcome to blogging about your genealogy. I am sure you will enjoy it! God luck with your current goals and the new ones you will make soon after.
    Look forward to reading more.

    Terri

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  3. My friend Jane sent me an email with comment and I want to share it here. Her Mom was a widow for a long time.
    I just read and looked at the pictures in your new blog. I am HOOKED. Can’t wait to see all you come up with. What a sweet comment from your dad about your mom’s. Very simple. He loved them both. Can’t think of a better way to describe a relationship. I know in my own parents it was very sweet too. My father just wanted to be with my mother. That was his life. HE was the life of the party man and things “happened” when he walked in the room. Everyone in town thought he was the best but all he really wanted was to be with Mother. It was a sweet love story. Mother knew it and was just happy. She was functional on her own. Guess she knew she needed to be. I look forward to hearing what more you might learn about your family. And how you write about it. I’m jealous of the time you are spending with this and have hopes to do something like this in the future too.

    ReplyDelete