The Genealogy Bug Bit Again!

I've been doing genealogy on and off since the early 90's during the infancy of the internet and the "hay day" of the genealogy boom. I met many, many cousins (both "near & dear" to "the further up the tree, the better")! Thru emails, letters, forums newsletters and everything in between, my database swelled to 9000 souls in just a matter of 24 months. I was hooked and adding ancestors became one of my favorite things to do. I was online for hours at a time, answering emails, reading forums, answering questions on those forums. I had bookmarks for as many as 43 family surnames that I would routinely read and reply to! Brick walls I would run up against would crumble and fall when I set it on the back burner and moved on to another family to spend more time researching. With so many surnames, it was easy to keep moving on to another one!

So after many years of that... I had to move on to something else. I HAD to take a break! (Photography... have I mentioned anywhere that I love photography?)

Then last month I was trying to find something on Mike's mother's family. Holy moly... the genealogy bug bit again! I've been spending hours researching this branch of the family that I really didn't get to as much for one reason or another, but now I'm spending time with these families and putting together the missing pieces. I am amazed (all over again) at how many times these various families interacted with other families I've been researching. Several of these families left North Carolina together and settled very close to each other in middle Tennessee. Mike's grandparents are found on the 1930 census (at ages 18 & 14) living a farm away from each other only to be married 2 years later.

My database now has over 10,000 related souls (my side and Mike's side of the families) spanning from the very early 1600's thru the present. Amazing how they all connect! Below is the oldest photo I have and then the newest!