my intrest in genealogy

Well I can say I came by my intrest in genealogy naturally! As I said before, as a youngster I lived with my grandparents while my mom was away at college. I stayed with my grandparents until right after the 5th grade. Once my mom got her degree, her job had her traveling all over the place, so it was just easier for me to live there. Well my grandmother was like "super geneologist", it was one of her passions. This was at a time before home computers, so she did it all through books, family members, writing to vital statistic offices all over the place. I can remember her having her stuff spread all over the place while she worked on it all. I can also remember being bored to tears, eyes glazing over, practically going into a coma every time she would talk about it.

Well as I grew up, and after I was married with kids of my own, did I decide to give this genealogy thing a shot by looking up stuff about my husbands family. Luckily there are a lot of websites out there that are a huge help! Some even have it where you can see other peoples research and build off of that. Which is how I have done most of his side. Oh I've had to do some research on my own, but others info was extremely helpful. He has quite the impressive line! His 10 x great grandfather (on his dad ... the Tripp side) was Richard Warren, who came from England on the Mayflower. That is amazing to me, and something to pass down to my kids. Not every family can say they had a relative at that first Thanksgiving! A cousin of his was captured by Indians and taken as one of the Indians wife. She was not found by her family until she was an old woman. Those are just crazy, interesting stories to me. I can't imagine! Just about everyone, If not everyone of his dads side of the family originally came from England. On his moms side, his great grandma came to the states on a ship called Potsdam, and she was from Holland. He has another great grandma from Germany. Of course finding records on them is hard. I have found a few, but its not easy to know what you are looking at when its written in a language you don't speak! On his moms side their are some pretty interesting characters there as well! His great great grandfather was asked to leave the state of Texas, after someone died in a fight! He got to come back at some point! His 3x great grandfather was the first sheriff of Wichita Falls, Texas.

On my moms side, it was pretty easy! My grandmother had done so much of it. Although now, through the aid of internet, I have even been able to add information to the work she had started. Which is what she would have wanted anyway!

But all of this I am doing, and researching, and compiling, so that my kids will know where they came from, and be able to read stories, and see old family pictures. Right now, when I try to talk about it with them, I see that old familiar look. Eyes glazed over, looking like all they want in the whole world is to not be talking about any form of family history! I know the look ............ I gave it 100 times I'm sure! But I hope they will appreciate it all one day!