This morning my genealogy quest took me ten minutes from home where I got to spend hands on time with several gorgeous old record books. To date this journey has cost me countless hours of research leading to wrong connections and dead ends, numerous teary, late nights spent chasing tangents that landed me in someone else's family tree altogether and a ridiculous amount of self doubt. Is this information correct? Does he/she belong to me? Can I prove it? Each time I've been wrong, I've been a bit embarrassed that I got a little too excited a little too soon. Imagine me doing that. And every word I've ever heard about genealogy research rings true. It's frustrating, it's confusing, it takes too much time and can be expensive. While librarians are usually nice, certain clerks in counties we won't mention can be nasty and even rip books right out of your hands. Then there's the fallout on the homefront... Dishes have sat in the sink longer than reasonable, laundry has gone undone more times than I should readily admit and our carry-put bill has doubled. Honestly it would be far easier to quit than move forward.
All of that said---I wouldn't change one minute of this journey. I've met an incredible group of researchers, historians and society registrars along the path that have challenged me to go further and research through a different lens than I used when I first started. I've traveled to places I would have never seen and I'll never look at an old document or census record the same. Best of all, I've had an amazing cohort in crime standing right beside me, encouraging me not to give up when I hit the wall. Thank you, Stacy Ziemer Green. You know we're really just getting started, right?
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| Marriage records--Hamilton County, In. |
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| 1800's marriage records--including that most necessary book A. |
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