My parents were both estranged from their families, and I always felt the lack of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins as a deep wound. Because of this estrangement, the family stories that my parents offered had little to no support or corroboration.
When I became pregnant with my first child, I began researching both mine and my husband's family trees. Part of this was (I'm sure) part of the nesting process; but a larger part of it was that my husband knew all of his family's stories, and wanted to pass them on. I was very envious of his multi-generational information.
This was in the days when Family Tree Maker was sending CD's with family trees on them, allowing you to incorporate tons of connections into your family tree. Unfortunately, there was very little internet access to primary records then, and I incorporated a lot of wishful thinking into my family tree, grafting other people's family trees onto mine. I have spent years testing the information from the family trees that I blithely imported against the factual data now available.
So, twenty-five years later, I'm still fleshing out the original family tree (I still have a few dead-ends), but I've got accurate data going back at least six generations, for my children and theirs to enjoy. I've disproved many family legends--including the mythical Cherokee Princess, and relationships with Robert E Lee--and discovered where our ancestors actually came from, including both people who landed at Plymouth Rock and who landed even earlier in New Amsterdam.
I love genealogy, the hunt and the matching, the seeking and finding. I have described it to many, many people as "the world's largest jigsaw puzzle", and will continue to do so. I have helped people find their birth parents; their relationship to my family; their own place in the world through their ancestors; their own origins. It's just wonderfully fulfilling, and endless fun.
