Finding relatives

For many years I have looked at the names in my family history.  Over and over I would stare at the names and wonder what good it did me to have the names.  I know that we are instructed by the Church leaders to do our genealogy, and I was trying to obey, but it appeared that all of the names were filled in by other family members and I didn't know what to do.

A little while ago I decided that I could start posting pictures of my mother and her family from the scrapbooks she kept.  I also posted some pictures of BJ.  I was hoping that by doing so someone could benefit.  But once that was completed I felt the familiar sensation of being lost.

Fast forward to just a couple of weeks ago.  My favorite cousin, Bob, has a much younger sister that I never got to know very well.  She lives several states away from us.  Through the boundless assistance of social media, namely FaceBook, I was able to connect with this cousin, Jamey. 

Jamey has recently started piecing together her family history.  When I looked into her family I realized that a lot of the information was missing in my family history.  She and I started sharing names, along with pictures and stories, of our relatives. 

Oh my!  All of the sudden the light flipped on in my head, and I started craving more information about my ancestors!  Suddenly my paternal grandmother’s sisters were real people, not just names on a page.  

And it became important to find out where and when my aunt got married and where she lived and died.  

And then I needed to know more about my dad’s brother and sister who died in childhood.

From this point I started looking at my mother’s family.  Yes, almost all of the work is done, but now I am starting to get interested in actually who each family member is.

I decided to explore a little of Kim’s family so I asked his mother if she had anything available.  Did she ever!  She promptly produced pages and pages of photos, stories, and pedigree charts – several with photos! Apparently her great-grandfather was one of the original settlers in our community!

 I immediately scanned and uploaded several of the pages to attach to family members on Family Search and am looking forward to devour the details in the rest!

I can't wait to see what else I can learn about my family!