I'm a Lot Farther Ahead Than I Realized

I’ve had to change some of my expectations about my genealogy search. Although I knew my father had recorded some family history, I didn’t realize how extensive his research was. He said he has over 1,000 names in Family Tree Maker.

So what’s a gal to do? I’m all fired up for the job, and I’m not going to quit. My dad says he’s hit a few dead ends. Maybe I can help with those. He also hasn’t traced back his family (McCauley) back to Ireland. Maybe some European research is called for here.

Here were my original goals when I started the blog:

· Get acquainted with the people, forums, and tools that focus on genealogy.
· Share my family’s history and memories.
· Provide helpful tips as I learn from experience.
· Bring my own extended family closer together by tracing the genealogy trail.

I don’t see any of these goals changing. As the only daughter in my family, it will probably fall to me to safe-keep the family records. I want to know what is there before I take over such a task.

Okay, onto my next subject …

Another subject that’s interesting is the final format of all this information. Right now, my family’s history is stored in an electronic file on my father’s laptop. What I would like to see is a scrapbook with the names and data from our family. Another idea would be to create a PDF (portable document format) that included the same photos and data. That would be easy to email to all of our extended family.

Now maybe some stuff like this already exists out there. I don’t want to re-invent the wheel, so over the next few days I’m going to be doing some research on genealogy tools.

I’ll report back soon.

~Mary Kaye