Date of Birth

To my boys,

I prefer to think of myself as an investigator - a mystery sleuth. Not a genealogy nerd or an ancestry.com addict. It's true though - I'm a little of both.

When your Uncle Craig decided to open up an ancestry.com account a few years ago, it opened a whole world of interest in my family tree. With Nana's help, I spent hours upon hours adding names and dates to our tree. Having studied foreign languages and international business, I just wanted to know where we came from. Nana's stories about her Polish grandmother were all I knew for sure. That "French-Canadian" Blanchard great-grandfather I'd heard about - what was his lineage? Was it true that, despite the English-sounding name, the Woodlings came from Germany as was the family tale? Although I didn't find much more hard evidence that I already knew, I was amazed at how rich my family's history was within my own country.

And when my tree started to hit dead ends, I started to search your dad's family tree. It turned out infinitely more interesting than my own. Although there was no way to verify, the technology was telling me he was related to Senators, to Saints, and to Emperors. The funny thing was...he didn't seem to be interested in that at all.

So, now I'm hoping that maybe one of you will share my interest and can appreciate your, as well as my, family history. The tree I've been piecing together is only a sketch. I'm hoping over the coming months and years to research more about what was going on in history during the times of our ancestors. Hopefully I can match up the tree with the history up, filling in the shading and colors.

I really don't have time for this. I have babies to raise and projects to complete. The dead aren't going anywhere, but the laundry pile keeps growing bigger. Yet, something keeps bringing me back to the census records and draft cards of a hundred years ago. So, it may be months - years even - between posts.

Let's hope that I post again before one of you can read this on your own...

Love always,
Mommy