How I started. How it’s going.

Recently Paul Chiddicks over on bluesky (@chiddickstree) asked how we all got started on our genealogy journey. History has always been a topic that interested me even when I was a small child. I grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Along the shores of the Grand River, just south of the city, are Native American burial mounds (known as the Norton Mounds). There had actually been some in the main part of the city at one point. They were removed, but years later the city decided to recreate them as a memorial to the history. I saw the recreations at some point in my childhood and wanted to learn more. I remember taking out books on Native American history.

In high school I was appointed to the Grand Rapids Historical Commission as a student commissioner. While a student commissioner I was involved in several history events in the city, but most importantly was mentored by Dr. Gordon OIson, city historian, and Jo Ellyn Clarey, another historian. With the help of Jo Ellen I organized a history speaker series during Women’s History Month in my high school that was well attended. I started out a history major in university. It was in my first year of college that I started doing genealogy research on my family. Those early years in online genealogy research were so different than they are today. There were no online repositories like there are today. It was all based on what you could find from other researchers who had done research in archives.

Life took me in another direction for awhile, but after a few journeys around the world I found my way back to genealogy and family history. That was in 2011, not long after my mom died. I got pretty deep in my own family tree, but then realized that I wanted to help others find their ancestors. I’ve volunteered with WikiTree, created a One Place Study on the neighborhood that I grew up in back in Grand Rapids, finding my first paid history research work. I especially like building out people’s Mothers Lines because history has forgotten our mothers so often. My favorite thing I’ve done so far is build out family trees for friends and acquaintances who didn’t know their family history because of the Holocaust and the Transatlantic Slave Trade and it’s aftermath.

The year is almost over, but it’s been an ok year with progress that I’ve made in my research. For 2025 I will be working on spending more time doing my research and not get distracted. My history project plate is completely full, but when I get some of my friends research projects done and the information sent to them then I can start adding more projects, paid ones especially. Consistency will be the word for 2025 (starting now, though 🙂 ).

(Follow me on bluesky at @free2l and my podcast at @theirvoicespod)