Research my genealogy

1. Traced a line back to the 17th century
2. Located a famous (albeit distant) relative

Persistence wins the day.

...which is to say, the last time I worked on this stuff.

After combing a half dozen hard drives, I managed to find the files and registration details for the program (GEDitCOM) I used to catalog everything. I also signed up at Ancestry.com to see if the state of the art had improved.

Had it ever. I was up all night rather effortlessly linking members of my family tree to public documents (substantiating names, dates, places, etc.), and comparing my research with that of a distant, distant cousin who was kind enough to make her tree public. It’s worth pointing out that the last time I visited the site, it was in the pre-AJAX age. They’ve been keeping up with the times.

There’s also a combinatorial effect at work: The more people who do their genealogies and share their results on-line, the easier it becomes for others to do the same. Not just in a Rupert Sheldrake kind of way.

I have a (re-)new(ed) project.