A Long History of Tracing My Family History

This October I'll officially mark 10 years since I began researching my family history.  That's right, as a pre-teen at age 12, I began tracing my family's past.  It began as a school project.  We were asked to gather the names of our parents and grandparents to construct a family tree.  When I saw the finished diagram, I was intrigued by the name changes and the fact one person could go back to two, and that person could go back to two more.  Simple concepts, maybe, but I was amazed.  I thought to myself, I wonder how many twos I can go back?

Well, some 9 years and 10 months later, I've now compiled some 650+ direct ancestors.  From village/town mayors to shepherds, bricklayers to innkeepers, and of course an abundance of farmers, I've found my ancestors to be quite an interesting bunch.  Learning about their lives, where they came from, and how they fit into history have all been the most interesting parts of genealogy for me.  I also like the fact that I'm keeping them "remembered," some of which who lived 100s of years ago.  And the hundreds of people I've met through the hobby, both in person and online, have certainly made it worthwhile.

So what will be the purpose of this blog?  I want to take my (soon-to-be) 10 years of experience in genealogy and share my knowledge with others.  I'll offer tips for conducting your own research, post commentary on the state of genealogy and the latest and greatest in genealogy online (which continues to evolve all the time), and I'll share some of my actual research now and then and interesting tidbits that other genealogists may be interested in.

I hope you'll find it interesting.  I encourage you to leave comments while you're here and share your own suggestions as to what you'd like to see in this blog.  I'll do my best to keep the content fresh (as often as I can at least) and to avoid producing a blog that is 100% text.  Variety is key, I think, for a good blog.