Why do I do genealogy

As I've stated before, I started doing this only to digitize the records, documents and photographs my mother had acquired when she was doing this many years ago.

I haven't been doing genealogy very long. Less than a year.

Except after doing this for such a short time, I realized while maybe I hadn't been the one tromping through cemeteries, or reading old newspapers, or hunched over microfilm, I'd picked up a lot by watching my mother do those very things. I picked up a lot by watching her search for documents to prove or disprove what she believed or suspected was true.

But that doesn't explain why most of Mom's records still aren't digitized and why there's a growing list of new documents and names with the list she'd left.

In January, when I started this pursuit of "saving" Mom's work, I wanted to learn why she first thought Reuben Birdsell was the father of William Birdsell, my great, great grandfather, and later changed her mind stating that William's father was in fact, Abram/Abraham Birdsell, Reuben's brother.

I had to retrace her steps. Very hard to do when all of her documents were in Kansas City and I was physically in Alaska. So, I searched for documents that she may or may not have found.

When I finally returned to Kansas and drove over to Kansas City to collect her records with my information and her information, it was clear where she'd assumed incorrectly and then in her records was a copy of the document I'd found, too, that proved Reuben was not the husband of William's mother, but Abram was her husband.

It was only one document though. An important document, but I wanted more records that showed beyond a doubt that this was the truth. I searched and found them. I keep searching for more and more and more.

Also, I search for Reuben's life. He's not as easy. Well, he's fairly easy through 1856. After that, I have information on a Reuben Birdsell, but I can't tie this information to my Reuben Birdsell.

That's why I started genealogy. To preserve Mom's information, which lead to tracing her thought process.

Why am I still doing it? Because for each question that I answer, ten more questions appear.

Not only am I learning about my ancestors that were gone before I was born or old enough to have memories of them, I'm constantly learning new things about my ancestors who were a large part of my life before their deaths.

It's the constant learning that keeps me going. Learning about the people, my people. Learning about the history of the various places my people called home. The challenge of learning the history of a location I've never seen, so I'll understand what it was like when my ancestors lived there.

The reward of finding some information, a chunk of proof, that was overlooked, or completely missed that sheds new light on your ancestor.

There are too many ancestors whose story hasn't been told yet for me to stop. That is why I do genealogy. They want their stories told.

I'm thrilled that they chose me to continue the work my mother started.