Hello Fellow Seekers!

You never really know what you have in a family until you don’t have it anymore.  I didn’t start my search for my genealogical roots until after my precious mother passed away in 2003. It took a couple of years before I actually got started with a real live tree.  Well, not “real” tree, but my family tree with its many diverse branches.  I worked for a couple of years on my first tree, met a couple really cool cousin seekers, then let it sat a while.  I thought I was doing well with about 78 people.  When I came back to it, my Ancestry subscription was expired, and my software was outdated.  Started getting things updated/replaced and realized I didn’t save my gedcom file correctly, and had to start from ground zero again.  With all the advances in Ancestry and the availability of new websites and databases, it didn’t take long to get up to speed.  I have now done DNA testing with three of the major testing companies, 23andme, Ancestry and FTDNA.  Later I will discuss the pros and cons of each in my opinion, and some of the software, apps and websites that I use.  I now have over 3000 people in my tree, with so much more to go.

Besides just wanting to know where I come from, I am inspired to do this to pass on to my children and grandchildren the knowledge of this great heritage of strong nurturing women and loving devoted hard-working men. Yes, there are always a few cracked eggs in the carton, but that’s part of life too, and I won’t toss them out, but make scrambled eggs instead.

The four major branches of my family are Reynolds, Marion (paternal), and Toates, Maxwell (maternal). My father’s side were early English and French immigrants,and my mother’s family immigrated to Ontario Canada from Ireland, and my grandfather immigrated from England to Canada, then to U.S. in 1922.  More on the families later.

My intention is to interspersed research aids and resources and fantastic family finds.  We wouldn’t be able to make the discoveries that we do without some rockin’ apps and websites.  But what really brings it to the heart is the exhilaration of discovering a new family member.

I don’t know quite how often I will be posting.  Ideally I would like to post daily, but I know that won’t happen. The other end of my ideal would be weekly, and this is what I will aim for.  There is so much that I am anxious to share, and will probably be somewhere between daily and weekly at least for now.  I hope you find this blog interesting and informative.