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Saturday, August 31, 2013

Starting Over

I guess it's been well over a year since my last post. How time flies.  I can't say I have been taken away from genealogy as I've been diving more and more into the varied families and thousands of names that are scattered through time. But this is becoming more important to me as I get older. In that I do not have children, it is a feeling of obligation to my family (as well as to myself) that I give a certain level of energy to something my whole family can cling to for generations to come. It is my intention that this work is only the beginning of discovery for others in my family.  It will never be complete.  The human family tree is vast but it is up to us to tend our own little branches. 

I've had to learn to focus my efforts into the places where I tended to find that notorious "brick wall" genealogists talk about so much.  You find there is a maze of such walls where you cross one and find two more waiting for you.  But the journey is what keeps us involved. It's a great challenge and I have found the reward of discovery is worth every moment of frustration.

I'm returning to my blog to aid me in the process.  I feel now I have more to discuss of my family and where we've been.  I can never know fully who these people were, but as I learn more of the times in which they lived, and of my own feelings about how people behaved, I believe I can sense them all the better.  I've learned to follow my instincts in the past year and it has served me well. A few things are predictable. 

It's also the more important I continue blogging so that I follow through with the stories of those who fought in that inglorious conflict 150 years ago. In the coming few months, I'll be writing of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga campaigns that were so important to two particular lines of my family.  So many sacrificed so much for different purposes. 

As we move on, please remember the Family History site that can be linked to through this blog above the blog posts. It has links to many more resources and research locations for you to start your own discoveries.

I'm going to take baby steps back into genealogy blogging, but I will gradually gain the confidence to write of my family in greater details.  I hope you will enjoy the journey with me.  As for my family who follow this, I do this as much for you and our future generations as I do for myself.  I hope that you recognize the importance of this and will help build onto these stories, fill the gaps that I cannot hope to do myself, and be able to share with your children the stories of OUR family.  I do need your help with this.  I don't own it. 

This is a work of generations.