Proud to be an american!


Ever since Thanksgiving I've been obsessed with building the family tree. Actually, it's more of a bush really. It's surprising how long I've gone knowing so little about my ancestors. Anyway, curiosity has gotten the better of me and I'm well on my way to tracking down our ancestry as far as documentation will allow.

In doing so, I've learned a lot. Such as the documentation can be wrong, people can be wrong and so can the government in its own census records. Some of you may argue that the government can't be wrong, but it is so. I've learned that one ancestor had children with four wives...he outlived the first three. I've learned that middle names, maiden names and social security numbers are just a few web searches away. I've learned that Jacob Pifer was born in 1821 and again in 1831. Er, he wasn't born I meant that he just created himself since he has no parents recorded anywhere for either immaculate creation. Thus, it's possible that I'm the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of a god. Remember, you read it here first folks.

Notwithstanding, I've loaded hundreds of names into my Family Tree Maker 2006 program. So many that I'm running out of names when I try to go back further in time. It's incredibly difficult to find anybody earlier than the 1700's. Middle names start going away, spellings change and the name pool shrinks. Sons and fathers are named alike. I've found two sisters named Lena, guess their papa liked it. I've set a few goals for myself like finding out if we had people who fought in the civil war and ideally in the revolutionary war. Then our family could enroll in SAR or DAR and feel a sense of shared elitism. Jealous? My eyes are already glazing over thinking of the stories I will be able to impose on an unwary audience. Interestingly, I think I have a good chance of finding this link as every single person I can find was born in the US. We're nomads, to be sure, spreading from coast to coast but we're all americans. I've been asked a countless times in pedigree smitten New York where my family originated and I've had to dance around the issue of english, irish, german, whatever. And now at last, I can simply say America and move on to the next topic. Hopefully, it will lead to hours of droning on about the revolutionary war!

1 Comment

You need to email my Mom. She's given my family the workover and has paid for a lot of extra resources.

The Mormon's are another huge resource. Their records run deep.

Rus

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