Off and on, I'd looked at records for my father's side of the family. I kept hitting brick walls in the very early searches in looking through census records. I finally had a breakthrough last night simply by googling! I was able to go directly back as far as my Great x3 Grandparents (born in 1814 & 1819).
With this latest find, it looks like I could be distantly-related to one of my best friends from high school. Possibly. It's a common name though. I also found the surname of another friend that's not as common but it appeared to be questionable. Definitely intriged to do some more digging to find out!
I started trying to put everything that I was finding down on paper. I really didn't want to sit here and print the amount that I was finding knowing it was going to take a TON of paper and ink. But then I found that I was getting myself confused with my notes when you get into children of this one and that one.
I finally decided to split the screen and open up the Family Legends software and put them directly in there as I clicked on the next finding. I put a lot of information in there last night. Luckily, the software has a "relationship" button and I was able to find out who some of these people are to me without a lot of brain power. Goes back to that "...for Dummies" thing! Maybe they need to have a series ".....for Blondes!"
I suddenly looked up last night from what I was doing and realized that it was 3am! I still had a lot of links open though. I ended up saving all of them to a desktop sticky note and then realized that it wouldn't have saved the "back" feature when I did that. So I may have to do some redigging...but this time I will have the software open instead of trying the paper and pen route unless it's to make notes about what to look up later at the library.
I guess I learned to never underestimate the power of google! Well, google or organization! I'm finding that organization is key and trying to tame myself into not jumping around from relative-to-relative in searches unless I have to. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but I'm trying to be better about it.
With this latest find, it looks like I could be distantly-related to one of my best friends from high school. Possibly. It's a common name though. I also found the surname of another friend that's not as common but it appeared to be questionable. Definitely intriged to do some more digging to find out!
I started trying to put everything that I was finding down on paper. I really didn't want to sit here and print the amount that I was finding knowing it was going to take a TON of paper and ink. But then I found that I was getting myself confused with my notes when you get into children of this one and that one.
I finally decided to split the screen and open up the Family Legends software and put them directly in there as I clicked on the next finding. I put a lot of information in there last night. Luckily, the software has a "relationship" button and I was able to find out who some of these people are to me without a lot of brain power. Goes back to that "...for Dummies" thing! Maybe they need to have a series ".....for Blondes!"
I suddenly looked up last night from what I was doing and realized that it was 3am! I still had a lot of links open though. I ended up saving all of them to a desktop sticky note and then realized that it wouldn't have saved the "back" feature when I did that. So I may have to do some redigging...but this time I will have the software open instead of trying the paper and pen route unless it's to make notes about what to look up later at the library.
I guess I learned to never underestimate the power of google! Well, google or organization! I'm finding that organization is key and trying to tame myself into not jumping around from relative-to-relative in searches unless I have to. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but I'm trying to be better about it.