Picking up Breadcrumbs

A few years ago, my father handed me a flash drive with a copy of our family tree on it. I've dabbled in working on it, but there is already so much done. I never thought I'd be able to pick up on dead ends that my family was having. I set it aside.

Recently, we moved to Oklahoma so that I could be a stay at home mom. This gave me time to pursue my interests. One of them was that flash drive. In January, Dad was out for a visit and we went to the local family history library to get some information. I saw a sign asking for volunteers. I signed up. Since that time, I've managed to not only make huge strides in working on my step-mothers family tree, but make huge breakthroughs in my own family history. Some of the breakthroughs were things that I never thought I would have. Ever.

I decided to start a blog after listening to Lisa Louise Cooke's seminar on blog and podcasts at Rootstech 2012. Lisa runs the Genealogy Gems podcast, and she mentioned how much could be done, just by posting a blog and discussing my progress. So... here we are.

Since my parents worked so hard on our family history, I can't really say that I'm working on my family tree, since all of the obvious work has already been done. Right now, I feel like Hansel and Gretel wandering through the woods following a breadcrumb trail. I'm looking for the bits, pieces, hints and clues that will lead me to places that my parents never managed to reach. I'm gathering breadcrumbs by locating the documents to support the work that is already complete, and making sure that the work that has been done is accurate. Unfortunately this also means that a beginner at genealogy is working on projects at a much higher skill level than I now possess. I'm hoping that by logging my progress and trials, I can reach out to the genealogy community for help and guidance, but maybe some other poor sap in my situation will be able to learn from my dumb mistakes.

I'm sure there will be plenty to learn from.