New obsession

I am obsessed with my family tree lately. I don't know why, but it is so captivating. I've spent the better part of the past week on ancestry.com trying to explore all direct avenues back to my family's immigration to the US. Obviously, some branches are much longer than others.

So far I've traced my mother's paternal side back to Scotland, her maternal side back to England, my father's maternal side back to Canada/Scotland and Ireland and his paternal side back to Ireland. I've researched as far back as my US membership will allow for now.

Normally I would be antsy to get an World membership to keep searching, but I think I'll be smart about it. I'm going to chat with few members of my grandparents' generation that I have left. I'm going to get as much detail as I can from them, and get as much documented as possible.

Then my plan is to locate photos for all of the family members that are still alive, or that I can locate photos for. There are over 200 people on my family tree thus far, but only 40 photos or so. Many of those are John's side of the family, which I haven't even begun to really add. I added his parents and grandparents and siblings. I will likely make an entirely different tree for that side.

I have a feeling this will take over my life if I let it (like I have this week), so I'm going to start giving myself and "allowance". An hour a day, or less, and that's it. There's no reason to rush this, and no reason to take time away from the present to learn about the past. I'm not truly honoring my ancestors by spending all my time figuring out who they are, and not continuing to live in the present.

I'll update on my progress from time to time, assuming I remember.