Putting Together parts of the FamilyTree

HI  

 have developed a deep love for genealogy and anything related to genetics. I had always been interested in doing a family tree and had worked on it over the years every now and then and just recently discovered emails and letters from relatives now long gone. My dearest cousin and godmother Dolly Nicols had actually taken a complete family inventory of all the T family in 2000. Thank heavens for that since I had not lived in MA for many years and lots of children had been born and many of my cousins had married.  This is an almost totally complete record of each person and who they married (and/or divorced) and what kids they had with birth dates and all. 

Before the internet and genetic testing was widely available it was rather difficult to go back very far in any of my family trees due to lack of records and the divorces of my grandparents. Now with the internet and vast networks of family records all online, it has really intensified my research and I have been able to get very far back with some parts of the family tree. I have got back to the 1600's in almost all parts of my family tree. In a few relatives I have traced back further, my furthest tracing goes to the 12th century in Scotland. The irony, until I did this I had no idea I had any Scottish roots. 

I think the biggest surprise of all was finding out we had roots to the Mayflower in Plymouth MA. As a child I grew up on Cape Cod, MA. We took class trips to the Mayflower and the Plymouth Plantation. I had no idea we had relatives that came over on everyone of the first three ships to Plymouth including the Mayflower. If I had known it then, I was right there, I could have gotten so much more information. 

It occurred to me, there are books about the early settlers and I have found many that helped me fill in my family tree. I learned the story of the pioneers that helped build this country. The Mayflower had 104 people on it and 4 died coming across the water. The first winter of 1620-1621 forty people died due to the extreme cold and lack of food. But the people that survived - these are my people! These are the survivors, these are the determined, these are the strong family members I came from. They have made me stronger, knowing their story! 

Stayed tuned for more topics.

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