WAKE UP AND SMELL THE FAMILY GENEALOGY

Camping and Genealogy

A number of people have recently asked me how to do family research. That is really a difficult thing to explain - it has to be learned. The best way to learn it is to do it right. Some people log on to the Internet and capture a lot of names with no documentation and then think that they have done research.

One time a lady wrote to me about a family that she had posted on the Internet using a web site that had only names listed - one of already made trees. She asked me about the genealogy of some of the people she had posted and said that she was very busy and did not have time to go to court houses and cemeteries but would welcome any research I had done - free of charge - of course.

I scratched my head a time or two and then asked her why she wanted to post something that she knew nothing about and why would she ask me for my work to post under her name? I still don't understand that one. 

Genealogy is a hobby that brings great pleasure to a lot of people. It is interesting and educational and what is reaped from the sweat and toil can be left for the future generations to come. What more could one ask for or want in a hobby? 

Gas money to run the camper to the court house and the cemetery gets to be expensive, but yes, being there is a fun way to research. Doing genealogy on the web and getting instance answers to those nagging research questions is also fun. I'm like most researchers, because I like to do a little of both.  

Since we can now do genealogy on the Internet we don't have to wait for the answers, because now days even court house records and cemeteries can be researched on the web. 

Gee, that sounds like genealogy homestyle. That's good enough for me and good enough to wake up to!  I might even be able to go fishing the next time I camp out.