378 pages! I'm up to 378 pages!

[fudge stripe cookays]

My family history, "The Descendants of Melchior Smith and Jane Fish" is now up to 378 pages!

I hadn't done a page count in awhile, and regenerated my files tonight (I'm doing it in Framemaker, so I can have a TOC, Index, and can create a .pdf for the publishing company).

This project began back in June, and the bulk has been done since I became unemployed. Layoffs are good for something! The family tree of all my first, second and third cousins is 26 feet long!

Can I get an amen, genealogists?
:bounce:

[Momgonepostal]

1. How about an amen AND a hallelujah, brother?

That's fantastic!

Can I ask you about your Smith family? Is researching a family name like that an incredible pain the butt? I've always counted myself among the lucky that we don't have any Smiths, Joneses, Johnsons, etc. in our family tree. It seems like it would make ancestor hunting all the more difficult.

Congrats on your project!

[fudge stripe cookays]

3. In a word, YES!

I am SOOOO lucky that my uncle Newell (we called him "Bum") did quite a bit of advance work for me. I just found whatever clues I could, and became a VERY good detective!

Uncle Bum did some work on this back in the 1970s, and even had some paperwork from our 2 Civil War vets that he got from the National Archives. With this info, he did a makeshift family tree on large pieces of butcher paper that provided constant reference for me in finding people; even a wife's first name or kid's first names came in handy when studying census records.

And some wonderful soul-- probably Bum, got a copy of this article from the Beloit, Wisconsin newspaper from 1936 that one of the granddaughters had written. In it, she described Melchior and Jane coming from New York, and what happened to their 10 children.

But some of that article contained the barest of details of some of them. One daughter, Sara Smith married John Taylor! But it did give me a clue that he graduated from Beloit College in one of the first classes, and became an Episcopal rector. So I contacted Beloit College, then the Episcopal Archives in Austin, and they told me to contact the Pittsburgh Diocese. When I contacted them, it turned out that John Taylor's great granddaughter had contacted them years before, so they provided me her contact info, and fortunately for me, she hadn't moved!

And one guy, Charley Smith "moved to Canada and died there." I had no idea where to start. But uncle Bum provided his wife's name and kid's names, and some of their spouse's names.

I found him through a google search! I entered just the right combination of words in quotes, and found out he'd moved to Burdett, Alberta. So now, I have at least one descendant for each one of the ten-- multiples on most branches now. And with each new cousin, I get clues from them one how to find others. It's been INCREDIBLY rewarding. Especially when I get to see photos of all the folks I'm researching and import them into the book.

In addition to Smiths, I've also had Jones, Webster, Day, Baldwin, Myers, Bennett, Benedict, and a few other common names. But I've also had some unusual ones. And I go after those with a vengeance, doing constant google searches and looking for them at www.genforum.com.

But I kind of like a challenge, so it's made it even more rewarding that I've found stuff that no one else in the family ever has. I've managed to put together an entire family that had fragmented so badly no one really knew where their roots were.

:hi:
fsc

[Quakerfriend]

2. WOW! That is incredible!

You just gave me a the inspiration to keep going with mine!

[fudge stripe cookays]

4. Yay!

Glad I could help!

Above all, never give up!
fsc