I live in Australia, an extremely old continent but one that has only seen white settlement in relatively recent times.
One day I was wondering how it was that my forebears came to this country. With that question a search began that has lasted over a decade, spanned several continents, reached back almost 900 years and continues to this day.
During this time I have found hundreds of "new" relatives, found and re-united family branches that had lost all contact (and in some cases all knowledge of each other) and have explored and exploded numerous family myths and legends.
I have always felt that history was more than a few paragraphs in a book, more than a list of dates and events. I have discovered that my ancestors have been involved in many of history's pivotal events over many centuries. Family members have been represented in many battles and wars and at times different branches have been on opposing sides, cousins against cousin.
One set of ancestors pioneered the development of this country another ancestorsset had that role in America prior to this country being "discovered" by Europeans. It seems that I can lay claim to being a son of the American Revolution.
The Internet has been an invaluable tool in my research and as every day passes more records are being digitized and become available online. The Internet also connects the community of genealogists making it truly international and enables it to cooperate and freely exchange information in a common purpose.
Each helps the other as we know someone out there may well have that one crucial piece of information that helps complete some part of the puzzle for us. This quiet cooperation embodies an emerging spirit of international and cross-cultural cohesion that can be found in few other areas.
Every family seems to have at least one member who catches the genealogy "bug" and that translates to millions worldwide. If that is not you then please pass this website along.
It is essential that as information is bought to light it has to be published on the web for others to see. Also essential is that the information also represent the "truth". I have a tree published on the net and besides this blog I have a few other sites which explore the practice of genealogy in more detail:
my family tree,
a book store,
a web site.
