Family tree
Recent chats with Janet, the daughter of my dad's and my aunt's Canadian cousin, and a visit with my aunt Laura who is born in Canada, made me feel like taking up my old family tree again. More than 10 years ago, I worked on it with the help of my aunt and her 2 Canadian cousins with whom was writing letters.
At that time I drew it on a sheet of paper, but it was hard to maintain it as I always had to start over branches as soon as their were marriages or children out of lack of space on the sheet.
Thanx to an hour of google I found recurring information of apparently the top 10 of genealogy software, tips to start your genealogy and some shareware. With a lot of enthousiasm I started immediately downloading this shareware and testing it and with the same big enthousiasm for this reborn hobby, I entered the 210 descendants of my greatgrandmother that I am aware of. Cool, now I can just easily add people, make new connections and republish some of the available reports. Fine, I customise the reports exactly the way I want them, but it's a whole lot easier than doing it manually!!
While chatting with Janet again, I could ask some questions that my aunt had of some cousins she hadn't heard off and I could send my family tree over to Canada. Thanx to that, I am now already e-mailing with Janet's cousin who sounds very enthousiastic about getting to know her Flemish roots and who is willing to help me out finding more addresses in Canada and the missing data.
It's really cool. I am actually not interested to dig further into time, not right now for sure, but I'd search all descendants of my greatgrandmother. Those are my relatives, some of them my age that are running around on the other side of the world with their own stories and lives.
Last week was therefore a week full of family news. Some news was good: new contacts, working on family tree. Some news was negative: a cousin of my dad and my aunts pen-pall is ill and another cousin, Maurice died this week. We knew it withing 12 hours later (the magic of internet huh) and I could tell my aunt who has known him. So now I've been thinking of a funeral today that happened in Ontario of someone I have never met or seen. Yet I felt a little bit connected to this funeral. I am related to his grieving family! A family I'd like to get more in touch with!
At that time I drew it on a sheet of paper, but it was hard to maintain it as I always had to start over branches as soon as their were marriages or children out of lack of space on the sheet.
Thanx to an hour of google I found recurring information of apparently the top 10 of genealogy software, tips to start your genealogy and some shareware. With a lot of enthousiasm I started immediately downloading this shareware and testing it and with the same big enthousiasm for this reborn hobby, I entered the 210 descendants of my greatgrandmother that I am aware of. Cool, now I can just easily add people, make new connections and republish some of the available reports. Fine, I customise the reports exactly the way I want them, but it's a whole lot easier than doing it manually!!
While chatting with Janet again, I could ask some questions that my aunt had of some cousins she hadn't heard off and I could send my family tree over to Canada. Thanx to that, I am now already e-mailing with Janet's cousin who sounds very enthousiastic about getting to know her Flemish roots and who is willing to help me out finding more addresses in Canada and the missing data.
It's really cool. I am actually not interested to dig further into time, not right now for sure, but I'd search all descendants of my greatgrandmother. Those are my relatives, some of them my age that are running around on the other side of the world with their own stories and lives.
Last week was therefore a week full of family news. Some news was good: new contacts, working on family tree. Some news was negative: a cousin of my dad and my aunts pen-pall is ill and another cousin, Maurice died this week. We knew it withing 12 hours later (the magic of internet huh) and I could tell my aunt who has known him. So now I've been thinking of a funeral today that happened in Ontario of someone I have never met or seen. Yet I felt a little bit connected to this funeral. I am related to his grieving family! A family I'd like to get more in touch with!
Comments
Now only if we can work on that family tree to find a descendant somewhere in history that connects us together......
Although, you and Jan will ALWAYS be Kaelen's Auntie and Uncle!
I admire your persistence and dedication in pursuing your family! Keep it up as it will always be rewarding.