I've been curious about my family tree, so I decided to take a stab at it. Last year, when I was living in Austin, TX, my grandma Ruby put me in touch with my maternal grandfather's Niece, Jane. She literally lived down the street from our apartment and I had no idea. Her daughter was getting married the following week and we were invited to the wedding. She comes from a LARGE family, being 1 of 12 children. I met her brother Jeff within the first half hour of the reception and having his laptop in hand, he was eager to show me family photos and kept referencing "the red book". He obviously was involved in genealogy research. Around the same time, my mom began talking about her grandmother Doris's autobiography. I thought, what a great starting point...
I put the curiosity on the back burner for many months because we moved from Austin, TX back to Southern California and bought a home. Now that we've gotten settled in, I'm ready. I couldn't yet justify paying for Ancestry.com, so I thought I'd do some Google searches on the names and dates I had: Success! Apparently Ancestry.com and other similar sites provide a lot of information free of charge. It's really only the records they make you pay to see. I was eager to start my research and it seemed too easy, I was like a Facebook stalker jumping from ancestor to ancestor! It was addicting! I came across threads of people asking questions to one another, hoping to get answers. Most of these threads ended in 2002. I guess it's good I waited until 2012 because a lot of work was accomplished between then and now. Although, it's too bad this curiosity didn't develop in college or I might have scored better on my Anthropology paper! Oh well!
Already, I've discovered that I am English, Scottish, French and Danish.
It's no wonder I can't keep a tan!
This is the ancestry of Nathaniel James, Joseph Todd and Ann Marie Lindsey
(Left to right: Joey, Annie (me!) and Nathan)
