Infectious Disease With No Known Cure

There is no cure for this disease.  It is passed on from one generation to another, to at least one member of the family. The method of transmission seems to result from several sources, neither of which are possible to suppress or circumvent. 

Onset of this disease often results during one’s high school years, where there is an unusual desire during American History class to dig deeper and learn if any of your ancestors came across on the Mayflower, was one of the original settlers in a community, ended up marrying a Native American Indian, or was murdered in the Salem Witch Trials.

If one isn’t infected by this disease at that point in time, it often invades our system when one of our close loved ones dies.  All of a sudden this yearning to know about your heritage invades your entire body and you realize you have to get going on the search before any more of the “older generation” passes away, or you yourself get too much older and the family history is not recorded for the generations that will follow you. This is followed by a fever, a yearning desire to get started on this project immediately.

There is no cure, all you can do is take medication in order to subdue this disease.  That means lots of research, whether it is by using the internet to get you started, or by visiting old courthouses for documents and finding old graveyards where your ancestors are buried.  The brick walls that you encounter will keep you awake at night, those old buried bones seem to cry out to you “ find me find me” !  Sometimes the burning desire is so deep that you get up in the middle of the night, brew yourself another cup of coffee to help keep you awake and you pursue the hunt one more time!  You try posting more information, rewording your request or the people that you are hunting for on one of the many genealogy message boards. It means searching records again, maybe this time for a sibling of your direct ancestor, or contacting others in the family who also suffer from this same disease.  Consequently more and more websites are popping up on the internet as this disease spreads. Information can become available through the most unlikely sources sometimes.  You know that you are truly addicted with this infection when you scrutinize each of the addresses of people who send you emails and they include the names of others on their lists to see if any of the Surnames match those you are looking for?  Or if you have joined any Yahoo groups and you watch the names and where they live?  .

I have so many different lines that I am following, that I often feel like Michael Jackson in the graveyard of his movie Thriller!  All of those zombies, clamoring for his attention and the feeling of being overwhelmed by it all!  There are times when I think ok, I’ll step back, work on just one line and guess what happens?  Out of the blue I will get an email and it will be someone who is looking for the same people I am and they are related through one of the other offspring of the family. I end up once again picking up the torch and trying to light a pathway so that we are both able to find what we are looking for. So much for concentrating on just one line.

So I go back to my conglomeration of Moore’s the ones in my family from the North, being Michigan and Canada and the Moore’s from the South, being my son-in-law’s family, wondering if they will end up being connected somewhere along the way. The same with my Parker family from Illinois and his from Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma.  Will all those Parker’s take me back to Chief Quanah Parker?

It is so difficult to try and stay centered on just one family!  My cousins and I have tried that with our Decker line. We were fortunate enough to locate several more family researchers and we are all still trying to unravel the mystery of who exactly was Peter Decker’s wife!  It would have been simple, if there weren’t more than just one Peter Decker, living in or near Passaic New Jersey, and who didn’t all name their children, using the same names of John, Andrew, Jacob, James and Isaac! They all lived in close proximity to one another and are often mixed up and end up in each other’s genealogy history. Once again, the need arises for as much accurate documentation as you can lay your hands on, and finding family bibles or journals which will be able to unravel the mess!

So as I start this new year, I am anxious to hear from all of you as to how you go about solving your brick walls.  How do you stay centered on just one or two people to try and track down at a time? 

Since there is no cure, I am looking for some other methods of finding solutions to these problems and the burning question…….. Who do you think you are?

This looks like a good book to add to my library!  So many times we forget about the women and really need more ways to locate them.

Expand Your Knowledge

This past year, I finally decided it was time to join some groups where I could learn more about this wonderful adventure of hunting up dead relatives.  So I looked at both the groups at Google and at Yahoo.  evaluating the number of people participating on their forums and the types of questions being asked and the answers received before I made up my mind about the groups I wanted to join. There is a wide varitey to choose from and I would suggest that you consider some of the following things when choosing your groups.

1.    Look for groups that specialize in the areas where your ancestors lived, by city, state or region.  
2.    Go with groups that have the same nationalities as your ancestors
3.    Check out the groups that are of specific religious background as your ancestors. For example,   Huguenots, Quakers, Dunkards, Anabaptist and many others.     
4.    Since your ancestors came from foreign countries, look for groups that are for English, German, Swedish, and African nations.
5.    Groups that specialize in specific groups like Native American Indian or African American heritage.
6.    Brick walls, help with locating people, documentation, grave sites, etc of ancestors that you are having the most trouble trying to get any information on.  

I found that the Yahoo groups were very active and had a much wider variety of forums to choose from. I ended up joining the following groups and have found each one to offer a variety of topics to be discussed, excellent help with any questions and problems that you might have and extremely courteous people. I am going to list these in alphabetical order so they are easier for you to find in case you might like to join also:

Brick wall.... this group goes out of their way to help members tear those stumbling blocks down brick by brick!
Cherokee Genealogy Community ...
        Specializing in Native American genealogy, with an emphasis on the Cherokee Tribe, but helpful with other tribes as well.
Genealogy _Descendant-Charts...
        This group works with descendant charts of Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee but they also tell you to feel free to add others.
Genealogy Research Club.....
        This is an all around nice site.
        Listing of surnames that our members are researching in the database and you can add yours also.
        A listing of popular websites and our own personal websites and you can add on more if desired.  
        They are there to help you whether you are a beginner or an old pro at researching.     
Olive Tree Genealogy...
        I joined this group because I love their website olive tree genealogy.com
        This forum is basically a newsletter, keeping you updated on things that are happening on their website as well as on other sites as well.
        Be sure to bookmark their website you will find you will be using it often as one of  your first "go to" sites for new searches that you are starting on your ancestors or when helping others.
Prussian genealogy......
        This group is for those of you with German and Prussian ancestors. Some entries will actually be in German because they have members in Germany.  So if you don't speak the language grab you a translator off of Google or go to  Babelfish.com and use theirs for any languages.
Scots-origins......
        This group is for you who have Scottish ancestors. Lots of interesting information on here.
Surname Search Daily....
        Surname Search Daily: Subscribe for free and get a list of  FREE online surname databases in your mail box every day. Keep up to date with NEW online research  tools as they become available

You will notice that some of my groups are very specific and that is because I am doing research in those particular areas.

One group I haven't added yet and I need to see if I can find, is a group dealing with the Dutch heritage. I had always thought that one of the lines I was researching was of German descent and low and behold it turns out to be Dutch!

Also be sure to take advantage of your library card access to Heritage Quest, which you can access from home using your library card. I have found all types of interesting information on that website from a very thorough Census Reports to information about the colonies and the people who were in them!

I recently learned about all the great books available at Google books. Just by plugging in the surnames of some of my ancestors I have come up with a wealth of information that I never knew was available before.

Is it any wonder I end up staying up till the sun comes up?  I get so wrapped up in all the wonderful things I find on the Internet that have to do with genealogy that I forget about time and the necessity of sleep.