I’m starting to write down the background and all the interesting little facts I have found about the various lines over the past few years. My original goal when I took over as family historian from Cheryl Mastin Matias was to trace each line back to when the person or family first came to this country. Along the way, I have learned a lot, as you no doubt know if you have looked at the family tree pages at all. There are close to 6,000 people there!
But facts about dates and places can be pretty boring, especially if you hated history class in school (like I did). Back in school, it was dull listening to the teacher drone on about how hazardous the trans-Atlantic crossing was. But when I see a photo of the actual ship that my grandfather sailed on, it is exciting to imagine him sailing away to a new life in a foreign land. So I’m going to use the Genealogy pages to point out the interesting and fun things I have learned about our ancestors, and I hope to bring some of that excitement to the Genealogy pages for you.
The trips we will take through our ancestors’ lives will vary a lot, from the relatively recent immigrations of most of my parents’ families after the Civil War, to some of my husband’s ancestors who were among the very first settlers in Quebec in the 1600s, and who moved to MA and later SD and IA. Most of our ancestors were from European countries like Germany, England, Hungary, Italy, France.