I just returned from a four day genealogy conference. I learned a lot and talked to so many people, all trying to locate their ancestors, mostly from other countries. I met a woman who can't find many of her Polish relatives, as they perished in the Holocaust. I met a woman who cannot find any ancestors on her father's side as he is adopted and cannot access the records. I met people who are using DNA to locate ancestors. It made me realize just how fortunate I am to have the records I inherited from my father, as well as numerous informally written family histories to draw from.
I came away with many new tools to either help me find missing family members, or enhance my understanding of the lives of those I have found. One of the tools is Google Earth. I have actually been playing with it this morning and have found some of the towns in Ireland where my Brennan family lived and some of their descendants still reside. I've found my grandparents' homes, my husband's childhood homes, and some of my previous residences.
I learned a lot more about how to find my German ancestors, and also found a contact for a person who can help me find my husband's Czechoslovakian great grandfather, who has been elusive until now.
The genealogy community, I learned this weekend, is a large and growing group of people who are all obsessed with finding their family's history. Thanks to ancestry.com, the Mormon church, and the television show "Who do you think you are," more and more people are adopting their extremely addictive hobby. The new genealogy craze also provides enormous opportunites for money-making, and it would have been easy for me to spend a fortune on the four day trip. Fortunately, there are many free sites one can access and not squander one's children's inheritance, and at the conference, there was no shortage of friendly people freely offering their time and advice.
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