I am following my father's lead in searching out ancestry for my family and my husband's family. This has led me in many directions - from my father's Ford, Speer, and Wylie ancestors in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, to my mother's Winter, Walter, Weidman relatives among the German immigrants to Syracuse NY. And most difficult of all, I have traced my husband's Allen ancestors in Iowa, plus his Clark, Palmer, and Colman relatives scattered across the midwest. I have recently started visiting cemeteries and taking some photos to add to the nation's databank, and occasionally leaving flowers on distant ancestors -- it is exciting to rediscover details of their lives, 100-150 years later. You feel, on some level, that you now know them as you read about them aging from birth, to marriage, children, old age, and finally the grave.

I am following my father's lead in searching out ancestry for my family and my husband's family. This has led me in many directions - from my father's Ford, Speer, and Wylie ancestors in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, to my mother's Winter, Walter, Weidman relatives among the German immigrants to Syracuse NY. And most difficult of all, I have traced my husband's Allen ancestors in Iowa, plus his Clark, Palmer, and Colman relatives scattered across the midwest. I have recently started visiting cemeteries and taking some photos to add to the nation's databank, and occasionally leaving flowers on distant ancestors -- it is exciting to rediscover details of their lives, 100-150 years later. You feel, on some level, that you now know them as you read about them aging from birth, to marriage, children, old age, and finally the grave.