Trying To Build My Family Tree

Sorry I haven't posted for a while but I have been very busy doing genealogy. I have been scanning one census schedule after another - from 1850 through 1930. Anyone who has ever done genealogy knows how tiring it can be - scrolling through these records.

I try to match the name and age of a relative or spouse or one of his or her children with the names in the census. You have to remember that these records are handwritten and the handwriting is sometimes almost impossible to read. Of course, many have the person's nickname and an incorrect age so I try to find someone else in the household that is familiar and see if the majority of the information matches what I already know or what I have found in the past.

I know this sounds pretty boring but it really isn't. It is like putting a picture puzzle together - you know how excited you get when you find a piece of puzzle that you have been looking for and all of a sudden it fits and the puzzle's picture starts taking form. It is pretty exciting isn't it? Well, doing genealogy uses the same technique and produces the same excitement. I look and look until I find a member of the family that fits and place him or her in my puzzle and all of a sudden I have a picture of my family, how they lived and where they lived two or three hundred years ago. I have been doing genealogy for a good many years so my family tree has lots of branches now. But if I look long enough, I always find a branch I didn't have.