lifesweaving.com Blog

How I have tried to share and preserve my genealogy
when health and money resources are limited
and still maintain an illusion of sanity

My contribution to the genealogy community is based according to, first my health, next my pocketbook and finally from available resources.  With health and money resources limited, so is my travel and research.  That is why the Internet has been invaluable to me in sharing my database and with the type of research I can afford.

Some people have more ability and resources to add to the genealogy community by really doing the heavy duty research.  These talented,  possibly healthier, and more affluent people visit court houses, libraries, other countries and order costly documented evidence for birth, death and military resources.  If it were not for these kind people who do the leg work and offer to share it, many other people who could not afford and can not do this kind of research would have only limited information about their ancestors.

This new computer Internet age gives genealogist and non-genealogist alike a whole new way of researching, compiling and sharing family data.  Since some people have more talent in one area than another, I evaluated how I could best contribute any talent I may have to this community.  After considering the three things that determine my limits, health, pocketbook and resources, I deemed that my talent would best serve this community by compiling and sharing.

So I compile and share data from all resources that are available to me.  Many of these resources include out of print family histories and genealogies, old newspaper articles, obits, births and wedding notices, church bulletins, Bible records, cemetery records, census records, oral traditions and stories, etc.  The resources also include email, regular mail and personal correspondence from family members connected to my database.

One of the reasons I started doing this is because most of the information about my ancestors had already been researched and well documented.  When I combined and compiled all this information about my ancestors into one database, I found that I shared ancestors with a huge percentage of all the people in and around Franklin County, Alabama.

After placing the combined information about my ancestors into a free database on-line, I had many connecting family members who found my database and wanted to include updated and corrected information about their families.  I gladly added their information to my database and as this data grew, more and more families became connected through ancestors with pedigrees intertwining.

While my database continued to grow, I soon found that many connecting lines were added through marriages of which I was not closely related to, if any at all.  However, I decided to continue to add this information so others who were searching for relatives could find this data.  I felt by compiling and sharing the information it would help preserve the heritage of these people for the future as well as my own.

My database is constantly evolving with new and corrected data.  Sometimes I leave the old data for comparison and also for the search engines to find this data when someone is searching with the old information.

Many times, I get an email from someone asking if I have more information in my database that I can share in addition to what is available on-line.  When I receive a legitimate request, I try to share anything I may have in my database that is not revealed on-line.  Sometimes I have so many request, I can not possibly, in this lifetime, reply to all of them.  (I do try to have a short life existence other than the computer and the Internet.)  Yet, I try to answer as many of these emails as physically and mentally possible along with adding all the new and corrected data that I receive.

Since I started this endeavor to compile and share my database with the genealogy community, my expense has been minimal, my mental health has had mostly ups with a few downs, and my physical health has suffered.  It is very hard to get much physical exercise while typing on a keyboard all day and most of the night.  However, the enjoyment and pleasure I have received from this decision has been monumental which outweighs everything.

Conclusively with my health, money, and resource limitations, I have found what I believe to be my niche in contributing to the genealogy community.  I have received many rewards of happiness from those who, because of information they found in my database, have connected with lost family members or began their own journey into the genealogy of their family and ancestors.

I also believe by sharing, and not hiding available resources in a closet, this heritage will be more apt to be preserved for future generations. Of course future generations will find errors and correct them as we have found errors from past records in our own time.  But at least they will have something to start with or continue.  Hopefully they will enjoy all the rich varied heritages and eventually recognize how closely related all people of this world truly are.

Editors note:  This is my first attempt at blogging and the first installment of a series which I hope there will be more to come.      …….Ann Glasgow