Because They Were ... I Am
  
 History has always been one of my favorite subjects.  As a teenager, I realized I have a family history. Throughout the  ensuing years I've accumulated many names and reading through them I wondered, what were they like, what did they do?  Each one had a life. Each person’s life touched, and perhaps altered the lives of many others, family or not.  Each of these lives  also helped form and explain who and why I am.

Time has reduced most of these people to just a name and date, and some not even that.  I hate that.  So, I’m doing my best to  find as many bits of information about each one, to try to form a “word picture”, at least, of each person.  As I continue to search  and save, I hope to find enough bits and pieces to give some of them at least a small part of their stories to go along with their  names.
  
 This site was created to that effort.  I hope researchers will feel free to share information, photos, trees, links, etc. Here I will  request, if you wish to share, please also include sources, i.e. documentation.  And this is where I get nit-picky….. a source is NOT  so and so’s family tree, or World family tree such and such. Yes, a source is where you got it, but just copying from another tree is  not a documented genealogy, it’s a copied genealogy.
  
 This site is a work in progress. Comments and suggestions are welcome, provided they are delivered with courtesy.  If you would  like to contribute information or you find mistakes (and can show the proof of that mistake), please send an email, again, with  courtesy.

A serious note here!!! Just because you read it on the internet does NOT make it so!!! There are numerous errors and  misconceptions being published as truth, just because someone posted it on the internet.  My biggest peeve is all the family trees  on Ancestry that identify their sources as "family tree" such and such. Sure, that may be where they got their information, but it is  NOT a verified fact.

The best advice I can give anyone who wants to get into genealogy?  Verify verify verify!!!  Verify what you find against primary  sources like official vital records (birth, death, marriage) and other original and first-hand documents or accounts. And have fun!!!