I love to work on my genealogy. It is a hobby that I have kept around and dabbled in for several years and always enjoy the work of building my tree. Unfortunately, life gets in the way. I have moved every two years or so for the last ten years along with deployments and separations that turn everything upside down. I have started trees several times and then stopped, only to restart another one. It has been a struggle.
Being in the Washington, DC area has given me the opportunity to visit the Library of Congress. I attended a training on how to use the Library of Congress in genealogy and have been motivated to really nail some things down. The stumbling block was how to move past this cycle of starting and stopping trees. One morning, I saw the same librarian who gave the genealogy class in the library. I told him about my problem and asked for help. He gave a simple, and obvious, answer. Take what I have. Verify it all on one tree, then move forward. This freed me from the mental block I had placed, and I was excited about getting back to work!
Now, I am going generation by generation to verify the information that is on my largest tree. I use Ancestry.com, so I also check on the hints that are available. I’m trying not to get too far ahead, but methodically working each name and connection. Through the years, I have learned much about family history research, so it is a remarkably familiar process. I’m into my third generation of six recorded generations, so I still have much work to do. I hope to spend more and more time on this as this summer begins.
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Photo by Johann Siemens on Unsplash