Those who know me know that I was bitten by the genealogy bug many years ago. Apparently there is no known cure. From time to time I dabble in other activities -- knitting, cross stitch, reading -- but I always find myself lured back to my computer, on the hunt for elusive relatives.
To be truly successful, you should research collateral lines -- those people who aren't in your direct line, but are related to the siblings of your ancestors. Many clues to your own family can only be found by researching those other, often unrelated, people. For instance, I spent a great amount of time in 2010 and 2011 researching the Valentine family (from South Carolina to Georgia to Mississippi to Louisiana). Mind you, there's no "proof" I'm related to these folks, but collective wisdom indicates I am. Meanwhile, I spent hours taking the file I was sent, looking up marriage and death and census records online, confirming or refuting the information in the histories. Still haven't found the "proof", but you never know... one of the current generation of descendants may have the missing information to tie us together.
Meanwhile, I've gotten bored with the Valentines, and am now researching the Rivers family from around Neshoba County, Mississippi. My mother's aunt married a Rivers, and when I was in the area 10 years ago, I copied the Rivers family genealogy from the Neshoba County Library. Working on families from the same area as your own makes a nice change of pace and you never know what you'll find. I discovered the other day that Mother's first cousin (daughter of said Rivers-by-marriage aunt) is in turn a first cousin on the Rivers side (and so unrelated to us) to someone who lives only a few miles from me in Minnesota. It's a small world after all.
