Biography

WikiTree Day Attendee: 2024

Pam (Anderson) Smith participated with Tree Nuts during the 2023 Source-a-Thon, adding sources to 46 previously unsourced profiles.

Pam (Anderson) Smith solved 10 or more Unknowns in the October 2022 Unknowns Project Skeletons in the Closet Challenge.

WikiTree Day Attendee: 2022

Pam (Anderson) Smith completed week 1 through week 12 in the Watchlist Weevils Challenge.

I started doing genealogical research because I knew so little about my family background. I was told I was 100% Irish and that everybody on both sides came over to the US during the potato famine in the 1800's. I was told that even our family name - Anderson - was Irish, as in "Andrew's son" rather than Scandinavian. I've learned that almost none of that is true.

I didn't even know my grandparents' names because all of them were deceased before I was born. I had lots of questions about my mother's adoption and my father's Kentucky roots. And I want to gather information for my children and grandchildren.

My husband has a large extended family, and the family had boxes and boxes of inherited scrapbooks and photo albums which were gathering dust. Someone had to step up and see what was inside. So we have jumped in together to find out about my family "from scratch," and to categorize and organize what his family already had while uncovering lots more information.

What I like best isn't the dates and statistics (I'm really terrible with numbers!), but the stories such as finding out who moved from here to there and why? I also enjoy the intellectual challenge, the puzzle, when only partial information is available...and that's always the case in genealogy. It's been a steep learning curve, and I still have a tremendous amount to learn.

But I love the idea of connecting us all into one big family tree - how can that possibly be a bad idea??

I have a Master's Degree in English and wrote my thesis on the Harry Potter Books, so I just HAD to get a Sourcerer's badge. Hooray for Wikitree!

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Pamela Anderson at registration.

Advance Directory

To aid WikiTree in the administration of my account should I be incapacitated, or in the event of my death, I hereby give permission for all private profiles I'm managing to be transferred to my son Aaron Smith (Smith-150381) whether or not he is currently on the Trusted Lists.