Hi everyone, I have been meaning to talk to you a little bit about why we do genealogy research. Some do it to join a society like DAR etc (which are good societies). Some do it and are determined to document every word. Some do it as an obligation. Some do it to get a feeling of family. Some do it for love. You have to decide what you want from your genealogy. I write it so I can not only trace my roots but try to find out the personal things that made each ancestor unique. One of my favorite things to do is go to my home town and sit at the microfilm printer with old newspapers microfilmed and just click every time I see any of my surnames mentioned. A lot of it is who had dinner with who or visitors from out of town, new babies, deaths, (I accidently got two of my great grandmothers obits doing this) Its getting to know them-- who were they--what did they like to do-- were they happy and fun or sad and alone. You can learn all kinds of things if you look and want to. I was reaised in an extremely disfunctional home with no feeling of roots. I went to 16 grade schools in 8 years. (don't get me started LOL) By researching I am getting the feeling of belonging to a family, of knowing where I came from. That is my reason. I have found funny things like (well I thought it was) my dad had to have his tonsils out when he was in the navy. I never knew so many things. I love getting to know each ancestor as personally as I can so I feel I know them and they are my family. This is genealogy by my perspective. I will probably never be able to document a lot of things but knowing the family member means so very much more. I think this fits in to what you were asking Tanya. Enough of my rambling along - Happy Hunting, Dianne