The Linking of Ancentry and Forest of Families

I've been busy for months using Ancestry.com to trace family branches and twigs half way around the world.  There have been significant discoveries.  We're back into the 1600's and well into Europe.  Family members have been instrumental in signing documents that transitioned New Hampshire from a colony to a state.  We've run across interesting names that come close (but not yet connected) to those who played apart in our nation-building - names like "Lee" and "Benedict Arnold" and a few  less well recognized. 

We've gone from about 20 names in the first sitting to about 410 within 4 months.  Members of the family that I haven't seen for years have become somewhat interested and likely interest will grow the more we know.  Our tracking across the country has normally been using Canada as a gateway through New England and on across the continent to Oregon with stops in dozens of states along the way to add to the family - and migrate onward.

We've sent for our DNA results but it has not yet been completed, but we are excited that it's in the process. 

It has been easier to get information about relatives that lived decades ago than it has been to cull the names and pictures and details of todays' relatives that we no longer interact with on a regular basis.  We've become separated by time and distance as work and retirement have driven us apart.  As a young man I met with family at informal reunions annually (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other family celebrations) I knew by cousins, was Godfather to some of my brothers children.  We've drifted apart.  The sad story is that the family seems not to have produced another person interested in genealogy except for a distant cousin retired now in Florida.  We've tried to exchange information and that has worked a bit. 

I seem to have developed a strategy:  find connections first, collect documentation second, refine the relationships (parents, siblings, children) third, and keep records fourth.  There will come a day that travel and visits to selected places and people will become essential to fill in the blanks.

Who knows were this will all lead.  Who knows who will be the next excited relative. 

I'll try to write more on this blog more often.