This week I realized the approach that I wanted to take with my genealogy research. With that decision, I have been sorting through a lot of personal documents I have and preparing some blogs to coordinate it for my records. I have decided to both post on Ancestry and to blog about it. That way I have the information in two places in the event that something goes awry. I will be scanning as I go so I can box things down and store them in the basement. I hope to one day have a roomy office. But that day won’t come soon.
My first step has been to gather as much information on my birth parents as possible and then form a timeline from when they met until I was adopted by my Dad (Paul). That is roughly from my birth to kindergarten. I sat in the floor of my library last night, ransacked tubs of information scattered around the room, making it impossible to take a step. I fanned the paperwork out around me in a quazi-chronological order so I could gather my thoughts about the things I was looking at in a more coherent way. I have a large, lined journal with gnomes decorating the cover. I am using it to jot down notes and timelines for use in upcoming blogs. On the bottom of each page there is the same gnome, looking as if he is judging me. I have taken to calling him Gene (short for genealogy).
There are a number of things I have been struggling with while working on this (my) chapter. Some are informational roadblocks, some revolve around my own stubborn nature. I will work through them eventually. In the meantime, I will keep cataloging my facts that are supported with actual documentation. I will also make a trip to the Raleigh County Courthouse for documents dating back to 1972. I would like to at some point make a trip to Pennsylvania to see if I can get into some courthouse documents. It is a work in progress. It is the one thing in my life that I am able to remain patient for.
Thoughts and Ponderances 