My Finds So Far

I just recently became very interested in my family origins, thus taking up the "hobby" of genealogy. I have always been interested in finding out where past members of my family came from, but never gained a keen interest in it, that is, until now. It all started when my sister-in-law came to visit us last month (May,  2011) to search for homes that her family members once lived in. She also did some research to find graves/headstones of past relatives. This is what got me interested in finding out about my own family.

I began my family searching on May 22, 2011 by opening an account on Ancestry.com. I really didn't do a whole lot that first day. I called my mom back home the next day to find out what she could tell me. She had been sent various family history items from other family members, who have been doing the same thing I set out to do. Mom told me that I could have all of the family history items that she had, so the next day, she sent them in the mail to me. I waited and waited and waited for the stuff to arrive. One week went by...Nothing! Two weeks went by...STILL nothing! Finally, on day 17 after she sent the envelope with part of my family history in it, it arrived, thanks to a neighbor, who had moved, but came to town to check their mail. He brought it by the house and NOW, I had something to sink my teeth into.

Meanwhile, while waiting for my mom's package to arrive, I did some other searching on Ancestry.com to see what I could find. I started with the obvious, my parents and worked my way up to my great-grandparents. I had them all correct until I got to my grandfather on my dad's father's side. I found out real quick that one wrong click of the mouse can lead you in the wrong direction, or as I like to call it, "barking up the wrong family tree". I received a couple of messages from someone who noticed that I had been gathering information off of their tree. Come to find out, I was, in fact, barking up the wrong family tree. I had been digging around in the wrong tree for a few days and was getting frustrated, because of various conflicts with one person in that tree. After digging around another few days, I found the RIGHT tree.

After I found all the right branches in my tree, I began "quick searching" through them all. Two of them, I hit early dead ends, but one of those, I didn't have to go far to find that I have blood from Wales in me. My great-grandfather (my mom's dad's father) came to the United States (New York is the suspicion) from Wales in 1887. I had achieved a small victory toward my ultimate goal...that of finding what countries my family come from. One other part of the family on my dad's side, I quick traced all the way back to the 1400s to find there is Scottish blood on that side of the family. Just out of curiosity, I searched to see where the origin of the "Kersey" name comes from. I found out that it is English, so England is also a possibility, though not yet confirmed.