Research Gets Harder

At first this ancestry project took off like a rocket.  Though I was only able to work on it in my spare time, the pace of progress fueled my motivation.  Every day I would discover some new link to the past.  Progress got a tremendous boost when I was able to connect online with new-found cousins who were also researching our family history.

After months of research, the project moved forward only in fits and starts.  New discoveries happened just often enough to keep me motivated.  Sometimes a closer look proved my former findings to be questionable as I checked my facts more carefully.  Progress sometimes took a few steps backwards.

It is now well into Year Two of this ancestry project.  It is becoming tedious work.  A new bit of information is a rare treasure.   Every now and then, I choose an ancestor and do an exhaustive search online.  At least once a month, I look for inspiration for a blog entry.  My main focus now is to try to make sense of all the accumulated information.

The next steps are to add more of my family's "hard copy" information and do more research outside of the online environment.  I will look for family documents, analyze them, and scan them into the records.  I will interview the few remaining folks in the generation before me to flesh out the facts with stories.  I will study historical records and read accounts of the places and events that personally affected my ancestors' lives.  Now is where the real detective work begins.

The goal of this project is to provide as complete a genealogy as possible for my children.  I want them to have all of the family stories, pictures, and documents within my reach, to be able to put names and faces to our family's history.