After my maternal grandparents passed away in 1972, I discovered an iron strongbox tucked away under the stairs in the basement of their house. Inside were some old photos, a collection of birth, marriage and death certificates—most going back a hundred years or more—and even a bundle of employment reference letters written on behalf of one of my great-great-grandfathers. Although I did nothing with that box for several years, its contents would ultimately ignite my fervent interest in genealogy.
When I first began to seriously delve into the family history, research involved hours in a darkened room squinting at indexes on microfiche and scrolling through microfilm. Correspondence with both repositories and relatives was conducted by snail mail, and I often waited weeks or longer to receive a response. Today, decades after that box came out from under the stairs, both email and online databases have made it much faster and easier to fill out the branches of the family tree as well as connect with cousins old and new all around the world.
This website is inspired by the extensive family tree I have constructed over the years, which will always be a work in progress. But genealogy to me is more than just a collection of names and dates, a compiling of who begot whom. Far more interesting are the stories that put my ancestors’ lives into perspective, that “bring them to life,” so to speak. Where did they live, how did they make a living, how did they die? How did customs, social mores, religion and politics impact their daily lives? These questions and more will be the inspiration for my ongoing blog.