Today is an exciting day. Today I get to meet a new relative whom I have made contact with via ancestry.com. She has seen my family tree and contacted me some time ago. Living a long way from my home she is in town and we finally get to catch up. Not sure what I might find out, but even if it is just sharing what we already know it is such a buzz. I have made contact with 2 other rellie’s via my ancestry.com tree as well. It is so good to be able to communicate with them, and hopefully catch up one day. I have a love hate relationship with having my tree posted publicly on ancestry.com, and I am still humming and haa – ing over do I or don’t I make it private?
I am more and more annoyed at people just taking information yet not feeling the need to comment, or even send a quick message with their relationship to my tree. We could maybe learn more from each other. Or could we? Some people obviously just want to add names and maybe don’t really have a lot to share, just wanting to extend their tree in as many branches as possible. That’s ok. I know I feel good doing as much research as I can before I post the information I have. This genealogy bug has caught many lately, and I suppose after doing it for 30 years means slow and steady has been the way to go. With the introduction of so much online information it has made it accessible for so many people which is fantastic, but also means many people just take large chunks of info and use it. And maybe this suits their purpose, so who am I to criticise? We all have different journeys to take, and I guess we have different reasons and ways of disseminating our information. I will continue to meet up with long lost or unknown relatives and continue to research and try to find source materials where possible. It is a journey, an obsession, a hobby and a passion