Genealogy Gems

I have been a listener of Genealogy Gems podcasts for quite a while. I have recently become a premium member of the site. Listening to podcasts on starting a blog I felt encouraged enough to give it a try. So here it is after about 15 years of research I am ready to spread my wings a bit more.


My history.


I became very interested in family history at a young age. In 1994, my senior year of high school, I spent many hours sitting at the local library in front of Microfilm projectors. I was always the only one searching through the local history and biography section of the library. My friends and classsmates at that time just didn't understand my obsession with family history.


I bought my first computer in 1995 when I was 19 years old. The first program I remember buying was a family tree program I got for $5 at Kmart. This opened me up to a world of charts and databases.


Then along came the internet. It was a slow moving hard to manage "monster" in those days. The only information I could find was on message boards posted by other family history researchers. It could take hours sometimes just to "dial-up" those boards and have the pages load.


WOW, what wonderful stories and connections I made in those good old Internet dinosaur days. Today, I am amazed at all the new and wonderful information that is loaded on the Internet everyday. Towns, Counties and States are loading old records, google is scanning and posting more books than I could ever imagine, and millions of people are uploading pictures and stories of their lives every hour.


I hope to use this blog to share my past research along with my new research. Perhaps, together we can break down those brick walls. We could fill in those large holes. Rake up all the leaves that were lost in the wind and find order in the pile we create.


I hope you enjoy sharing my joys, pitfalls, and accomplishments in this wonderful world of genealogy. I look forward to meeting many great new cousins and friends.


Thank you for reading.