Thursday, September 24, 2026

Back At It

 


Genealogy is like an Addiction. No mater how much you have, you always want more. I thought I was done with it because of frustration with language barriers and lack of data. My son’s interest in some very old photos made me think about it again, and then I looked back at some old records. Questions arose.

Over time, I collected lots of names and dates. My focus was on ancestors rather than just accumulating names of very distant relatives. I went back as far as I could until the frustration got to me. But context was always lacking.

What is missing are family stories. I made some YouTube videos about my immigrant ancestors and a couple of others with family as focus. Each one was a time-consuming project. I also wrote a few essays about family and posted them on a blog that never took off. I plan to write more.

So here I go again. Hoping that more records have become available in the intervening years. With few exceptions, my focus will still be on ancestors, but I hope to add context to understand them as people, not just names and dates.

And I will be using AI occasionally. I’ve already asked two questions and have received very useful information. I asked: Tell me about social history of Poland in the 19th century. I also made the same request about Bohemia in the 19th century. AI can be very useful.

If you’re interested, here are links to my family stories

youtube.com/@familystories2406

https://mcfstories.blogspot.com/

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