An Introduction:

I’ve been reading lots of blogs over this past year, as well as attending genealogy-based webinars, mostly courtesy of Legacy.com. I’ve been thinking about starting up a blog about my family history research. I actually did another genealogy blog several years ago, but it’s been several years since I’ve added anything to it. So I’m going to start again, and hopefully I’ll be more diligent about adding to it on a regular basis.

 Blogging about my family history research will kill two birds with one stone:

 1. Fulfilling the nudges from a guilty conscience which tells me I should be doing this
2. Putting on paper what I know about various ancestors, complete with sources; what I don’t know about them; and what I would like to know or learn about them. That will help me realize what I know and what my next steps could/should be.

 Back in January of 1995, we got our first computer. It had a whopping 8 mgs of RAM, and I believe it was a 486 (not sure what—and hubby is at work so can’t ask him for more details), and we paid about $1,800 to have a friend build it for us. Comparable computers from the store ran $2,500 to $3,000, and this was pretty hot stuff for 1995. For years my in-laws wanted to buy us a computer, but we had no idea what we’d do with it at the time. This was before 1987, as that’s the year my mother-in-law passed away.

When my youngest children (twins) were entering first grade back in 1990, I decided it was time to pick up the research I had put aside to raise the last three of our six children. A few years later, it was becoming apparent that at long last I had a use for a computer. I had started family history research back in 1968, as a young mother of a six-week old baby girl. My mother’s youngest sister, “Aunt Elsie,” had compiled a basic genealogy of the family. She had also followed one of the first rules when starting out (which I learned later on): Ask family members what they know! Her aunts and uncles were getting older, and she was wise enough to start asking them about their family—what they remembered, what memorabilia they might have, etc. She made a copy for each of her sisters. When I read my mother’s copy, I took it and don’t think Mom ever saw it again. It became the basis for my own research, and I was privileged to work with Aunt Elsie to extend our information back several more generations, until Aunt Elsie passed away in 1987. Boy, wouldn’t she have loved this computer age! My research was kind of “on-again off-again” as we raised our six children.

 No Internet back in those early days. Research was done by writing to court houses, cemetery associations, relatives, etc., and waiting in hopes you’d hear back from them quickly. Research was also done through the LDS church, although in those early days they didn’t have the local Family History Centers to send microfilms to like they do now. You had to actually go to Salt Lake.

 In June of 1971, Mom & I took my two daughters (ages 3yrs. & 18 months) and our dog Benjie, on a van trip back to Marysville, Kansas—her home town. I was able to meet one of her uncle’s, as well as many of her cousins. I spent an afternoon at the old Courthouse copying down marriages out of the ledger books, and some more time at the local newspaper office, copying down obituaries and what-not from the papers. Back then, copy machines were fairly new, and small towns just did not have them yet. Then I got an unexpected bonus: Heading home, Mom thought we’d come through Salt Lake and then head north to get back to Portland (our home). And she agreed to watch the darling daughters so I could spend a few hours at the Family History Library! I don’t remember for sure just what I copied from microfilm, but I’m sure if I dig deep enough in my paper files I might still have that information.

 Since this is getting a little long, I will stop here, and cover the “Computer Years” in the next blog. I hope that one will be ready to go in the next day or two.

 After that, comes “What I Know, Don’t Know, and Would LIKE to Know about . . .”

And my first subject will be: Jonathan Millet of Voluntown, New London, Connecticut (ca 1740-1798).