Brain dump,,,,,,,

Greetings!!

I think I am suffering from information overload, LOL.  As you know I have been working on my family genealogy and I have come to the point where I have so much information floating around in my brain that I need to dump some of it out and make room for more.

It's time to put some of that information down to hard copies that I can refer to rather than trying to remember it all.  If I don't I will surely forget something!!

I have a big black 3 ring binder that I am filling up with all this information.  I have in it, copies of obituaries, deeds, military records, various censuses and so on.  Yesterday I found an obituary for my great-grandfather's wife.  It was interesting!  I found out my grandfather had more than one sibling.  I only knew about the one but he actually had 3 siblings!  I know their names and need to go hunt them down.

I have spent a lot of time on findagrave.com trying to find cemeteries that some of my ancestors are buried in.  It is a great resource, however, because the photos and listings are done by volunteers much of them are incomplete and names are still missing.  Still, it is a good place to look.  And if you know the name and location of the cemetery you can always ask for volunteers to take pictures for you, especially if you live some distance away.  Be patient!!  Sometimes it takes a while for a volunteer to get to the cemetery.  For example I am a volunteer photographer locally but have not been out to take pictures yet this year.  The weather has not been very co-operative.  Most days when I have the free time to go, it is raining cats and dogs.  I was hoping for today but alas we are expecting some wicked thunderstorms again later today and right now the heat and humid is enough to choke an elephant.  Tomorrow or Friday early in the morning should be better days to make a trip to one of the local cemeteries and get some pictures taken.  I'll print out a list of the requests later today to take with me.

Yesterday when I was looking for pictures of Smokey on some thumb drives I came across a ton of military records and censuses I saved some years ago.  At the time I had no idea if any of these people were relatives or not, but I saved them anyway thinking someday I might make a connection with them.  I am glad I did because I now know some of them are indeed ancestors and I can print them out and attach them to my other records for the individuals.

If you are like me, money is often tight and you cannot afford to join every genealogy site online now.  I suggest you do what I did when I did not have the money to pay for a membership.  Take advantage of their free trial periods.  Most of the sites offer free trial periods a few times a year.  Get in on them and save every record you can find to your computer.  Even if you do not know if they are a relative or not.  You might find out later that they are and that will save you tremendous work down the line.  This is how I found a lot of pieces to the puzzle and many pieces I did not know fit,,,, until now.  There are still so many more pieces to look for but it is so much fun!!

Until next time,,,,,,,Blessings!!