organized chaos

I become very obsessed when I get excited about a project.  I found a free family tree builder over at Ancestry.com and just went to town.  My paternal grandmother already put together some information for their side, so I could just copy that in.  Then I had a couple of generations from my maternal side, and tons of information came up that had already existed in the database.  On some of my family’s lines, I traced all the way back to the 1500’s!  Wicked. 

There’s a tool to find “famous” ancestors, provided all your info is correct and that’s a very weird experience to see all my cousins: usually 9th or 5th, so many times removed, that I would’ve never even guessed I was related to.  I even have a Great Uncle who came over on the Mayflower.

Plus, all this is terrific history experience for the gremlins.

Oh yeah, and if you do head over there to check it out, be prepared for some lovely brick walls.  What I mean is, if you want access to ALL the census info, you have to pay for the subscription to Ancestry.  BUT, if you look hard enough, some of it is free.  Like the Ellis Island passenger lists are free to look at, and I found a couple of my people on there. 

There is another place to get info at least for Kansas residents.  HeritageQuestOnline.com   has free census viewing if you have a Kansas Library card, that you have to apply for.  Perhaps other states have this also. 

Happy Searching!