Pedigree Chart 1985

I made my first attempt at looking into our family history when I got this chart from Uncle Ed back around 1986 or so. I don't remember exactly when but we had many conversations and correspondences over the next several years. He was very much into researching family genealogy and this was one of his early attempts of creating his family tree. I like that they called a family tree a pedigree chart. Well, even today on Ancestry they call looking at your family tree "the pedigree view".

At that time I was working hard on the family history project and I had contacted many of our cousins to get information to fill in the gaps. We were also trying to fill in a current family tree of all our cousins, their children and soon to have grandchildren in the coming years. I had accumulated several folders of charts, letters and assorted documents that I was collecting at the time. I still have all of that stuff.

Then I got sidetracked by all the brain aneurysm issues. I was the first of my generation to get tested in 1988. At first it was negative and then Dan tested positive. He had a clipping surgery that had some serious complications from Malignant Hyperthermia that caused a stroke. As he recovered I was tested again this time with a different scan and came up positive. 

My family history project at the time was put on hold. After my long recovery I decided to go to graduate school which then took a couple of years of intense study along with raising a couple of small children. Then it was on to a new career and a new job as a computer tech specialist librarian. It would be many years before I got back to doing anything with the family history. 

I did talk with Uncle Jack regularly and he would update me on his genealogy progress especially as the technology evolved. He would give me some updated documents. I was still interested but just didn't have the time to devote to such a project.

Well, now I do have the time and frankly I'm surprised I didn't jump back into this a few years ago when I retired. Now I should make up for lost time and I also have this blog to document my progress and to write stories about my discoveries. I've been on Ancestry for a few days now and I'm enjoying it very much.