Welcome

Hi, and welcome to my blog. I’m Marianne, a librarian and amateur genealogist who’s been working on family history research since 1999. Back then, I was a recent high school grad helping my mom navigate the internet to find genealogy info.  My interest in family history started before then, even though I didn’t really know it at the time. Growing up, I loved looking at our old family photos and I loved hearing stories about when my parents and grandparents were kids. I’ve always been an avid reader of historical fiction, and a perfect Saturday afternoon for me would be spent in a historical museum or visiting an old one-room schoolhouse. I’ve been drawn to the past ever since I can remember. 

Researching on my own didn’t start in earnest until my mom passed away in 2008.  I didn’t want to leave our work unfinished, and even though I don’t have kids of my own to pass family history stories to, I felt it was important for my sister and me, and my sister’s kids someday, to know our family’s story.

I didn’t only research my own family, though. I started looking into my husband’s family history as well, to see if I was actually good at this, or if I’d just been successful because I’d had the benefit of knowing my own family backstory so well. After diving into my in-laws’ genealogy and turning up treasure troves of information, I realized I just may have a talent for this after all! My formal librarian education certainly helped build that foundation for success, but it also takes a lot of determination to bust through “brick walls,” and willingness to check and cross-check everything I find.


I’ll be posting my discoveries here, both to help me keep track of them, and also to put them out there in a public format in case they might be useful to anyone else in their research. Thanks for reading along as I scale my family tree.

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