Ancestry: the Project
Submitted by dsimmer on Thu, 03/18/2010 - 10:35
Yesterday one of our English teachers asked me about genealogy and best practices in research. We had a nice conversation about the joys of the ancestral scavenger hunt, chasing down leads in different states or countries to figure who your ancestors were and how they impacted history. I made it home feeling inspired to pick up the genealogist's mantle that I have worn from time to time. Giles surprised me by telling me that she signed up for a free trial at Ancestry.com to research her own family lines, so we had a bit of an ancestry collaboration yesterday. It is incredible how quickly this type of work captivates and consumes all of our time.
Consider these facts:
On my paternal side, one line is traced back to a 1669 birth in the Rheinland-Pfalz region of Germany:
On my maternal side, one line is traced back to a 1681 town meeting record in Malden, Massachusetts Bay Colony. According to some genealogists, that line is believed to be of Irish origins and the man at the meeting is assumed to have immigrated to Malden from Ireland. He would have been 21 at the time of that meeting.
I love detective work!
