family questing

You may think that bopeep just thinks and talks about sheep. But, I have plenty of lost sheep in my family. I have been looking for my ancestors since one day in 1980.
An important day for the rest of my life.
I was wandering in the quartro stacks at the university. Killing time.
Quartro stacks are where the big books go. Tall books, fat books...obscure books...however that is spelled.
I have always liked fat books. They are the ones that you can't read in one day. Important, if you only get to a library once a week.
I digress. Wandering down the stacks, I passed a title about a Wisconsin county....about 8 feet farther, I remembered my mother grew up in that county. Surprising thing was that I actually went back and looked in the index for family names. Second surprise was that I found two.
Of course, we didn't discuss old family things in our household. Not a clue, whether one of these families was mine. So, I picked up the thick book, and lugged it home.
My mother lived with us for many years. She could still remember family....but didn't think these families were part of her's. Finally, three generations down the page, she mentioned her grandfather was named Freeman, too.
Wow, was I hooked! In my hands was a story about family I had never heard about....my mom had never heard about them. How amazing. I was descended from a well-digger, who found artifacts at great depths in the ground. Joy!
OK, you have to understand, I was studying Anthropology. Archaeology is in my blood.
Now, I had never heard about looking for family. I didn't know I had to look for birth certificates and death notices. I knew where you found out about things.
In the library. So, I began to kill a lot of time in the university library. Looking for family. Pulling books on Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York....and it paid off.
I found my family again. Yes, they were right there in the history books. Except this time....they weren't well-diggers, or traveling in covered wagons, or fighting in the civil war....this time they were Indians. Go knock me over with a file card....well, this time mom was not so excited. She had been brought up at a time when Amerinds were not admired. Mom didn't even like farming ....so this was really hard to deal with. Especially when I became obsessed with finding out more about my own family.
Stop looking....she would say, you want to go back to adam and eve....tsk tsk tsk.
Almost....now we have dna testing to help in that respect....I may not go all the way back....but I am haplogroup A...and my brother is haplogroup R1a....so I know a little about our descent from adam and eve.
Why did I start this blog?
I'm not sure. I love discovering new places to look for my own family. Perhaps there are others out there in la la land who like that too. Maybe I will post about some of my family names and places...maybe just about how to find your family....we will have to see.