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Family Tree / Carrie Norwood

My grandmother is the real genealogist in the family.  She painstakingly collected boxes of documentation from in person research at libraries and court houses.

My first excursion into family tree research was in middle school.  I created this poster with my family tree on it that went back 13 generations on my mom's side.  My grandmother sent me pages of handwritten notes to help me with it.  I didn't know my father at the time so I didn't have his side on it.  After moving umpteen times and downsizing and de-cluttering and cleaning out over and over through the years, that poster is still rolled up in my garage and my grandmother's notes are in a box somewhere.  Of all of the things to hang onto for 20 (plus) years, that was it.  So, it was meaningful to me.

And I think it was also meaningful that I didn't know my father or his family.  It became important to me, in the course of my budding interest in genealogy research to understand and know his family more - the best I could, even if it was only through getting to know people long since passed.  In the course of that, I reconnected with some living family on his side.  Hooray!  And also, inadvertently, became fascinated and fell in love with the family.

My family research has, for the most part, centered upon the family lines of Norwood (hereto forthwith to include Norwode, Northwood, Norwude etc), Yarbrough, Maynard, Sinks (and possibly Sykes), Kelly, Hursey and Bass and those family lines as they pertain mostly to Tennessee, Virginia and South Carolina, with a few exceptions.  So far, I have connections outside of the United States to England and Prussia.

I love research... fact finding.  I love categorizing and stashing information - having information.  There's still quite a bit I don't know yet, where genealogy research is concerned.  I'm certainly not a certified genealogist - or someone who has been educated in the role.  But I strive to be accurate and logical in my approach.  All of my research has thus far been based upon what I can find through personal interviews with family, books and online resources.  

I've been consistently frustrated with old defunct websites and email addresses.  There will be an amazing blurb written about someone I'm researching in a forum and no sources cited - and then email to the person to ask about sources bounces.  Dead ends upon more dead ends.  So I'd like for this blog to be a place where I can put details about someone I'm researching and get feedback or information from others researching the same person.  A place that doesn't go dead. Unless I go dead.  Knock on wood.