learn my family history

So I found relatives on Facebook and they have helped me piece together some history. I still only have the most regarding my paternal grandmother – but have more ideas of what to look for and where – I found distant cousins in the UK and Australia.

I contacted family members and found one who had done a pretty impressive trace back to the 1600’s. So I have that going one my paternal grandmother. I just need the rest at least my great grandparents. so I can get started researching them farther back. I know most came from back East in the US.

So I have found a cool website that lets you make up your family tree for free. MyHeritage.com, pretty good – it lets you enter events, birth and death dates, and do subsequent “trees” for other family members, like ex husbands, people who have married into the family etc. So I have added the couple hundred people in the four generation that I know of, now I have to fill in dates and then backtrack from there. I really feel pressure to get this done since my one remaining grandparent is in his 90’s and I’ve lost several people the last few years.

LEARN

I found a family tree book that my mom was working on. She actually has a pretty extensive set of family members I’ve never even heard of. I’ll have to ask her about that. I think it’s kind of interesting that I’ve got distant relatives with the last name Johnson. So maybe my great great grandfather was a British nobleman after all…

Searching for your “roots” can be tiresome sometimes, but it is also very fun and interesting! You get to “tie” names with events and dates. Suddenly, those names aren’t just names on a piece of paper…they are your ANCESTORS!!You are who you are because of them! that is cool…Then you realize YOU will be someone else’s ancestor. Really inspiring!

so since i was adopted, i had no information about my medical, family or ethnic history. i just recently applied for the magical “packet-o-goodies” from the state, and found out all the “missing pieces” of my family history. i even found out the names of my birth parents, which i’m in the process of trying to contact now. :-)