My Life

It started with me looking for my birth family. I knew names, but wanted to know more. I am bi-racial, so my history is easier to find on my maternal European descendant side versus the paternal African descendent side. I have been able to trace the maternal side of my biological great great grandmother back to areas of Switzerland, England, some Kings of Scotland, England and France as well as the Holy Roman Emperor. Her husband I can trace to into 1600 Germany. On biological Maternal Grandfather’s line ends quickly in the early 1800’s of Germany. On my biological father’s side, I can find history back into the mid 1800’s. His mother’s family, now in California came from South Carolina and Arkansas/Alabama to Arkansas, where she was raised. His father’s family followed the same trail. I had the opportunity to meet some of the members of these families in March of 2011 for the first time. (It was more fun on paper) My adopted parent’s family has been a little more difficult to trace, as they were both born on the Island of Bermuda, and Bermuda doesn’t publish many of their records online. Additionally, their families migrated from St. Kitts and a lot of the records there were destroyed in a fire. Doing genealogy searches has become a guilty pleasure for me now. I have done family trees for my husband’s family reunion last year – digging up information that others forgot. I have done them for friends. I have an uncle who never knew his father’s side of the family. I was able to help give him that, even though only on paper. I wish there were some type of job where I could do this full time! Ancestry.com has been a great source for me as well as Familysearch.org