Starting in genealogy is sorta like being a detective. There is a whole lot of leg work to make sure you actually have the person you are looking for. No matter if you think you have a pretty unique name or not. For example, here are the some of the surnames for the family tree I'm working on: Bodge, Stringer, Connolly, Hamby, Manson, Morris, Cox, Vann, and Smith. Now, at first glance I thought this should be no problem except for a couple of the names I didn't think they were all that common...I was wrong. I've made progress with most of the branches but am still some stumped on some of them. Ancestry.com has been a huge help. It is a bit pricey but having so much information in one place saves so much time. I love to see when I have a little wiggly leaf pop up...yea, you've seen those commercials...those little leaves are addicting (and frustrating)! One thing those little leaves may show you are other trees with the same ancestor as yours, among other things...but that's not always the case. Which begins more detective work because some of those other people have failed to verify their information. Verifying information is critical to genealogy. You need to make sure you have the right person and the documentation to prove they are your ancestor and their information is accurate. In some cases you may have the right person but some of the infomation may be inaccurate and needs additional research. For example, I'm pretty sure if someone was born in 1794 they didn't get married in 1802...yea, I've actually seen this on someone's tree. Really?!?! I know people got married at much younger ages back then but 8 is pushing it just a bit!
Tiffany
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