Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Nothing Further Known At This Time

For some time now, I have been posting tidbits about my family and ancestors as a series of 'Family Milestones' posts.  What started out as an attempt to new content posted to the blog has turned out to be instructive and enlightening to me in regards to the lack of information that I possess about any number of families.  

My hope in publishing these mini-posts is that others who are researching the surnames will find the posts and be able to add information to my data.  Some have contacted me, and for that I am thankful.  I hope that those who read the blog are not too bored by the recitation of birth, marriage and relationship information.

Recently, I have begun to add the phrase 'nothing further is known at this time' to those posts on distant great-grandaunts and uncles, etc. that I have very little information.  My hope is that eventually I will get to a point where I can go back and update those posts with newly found information.  Perhaps some distant cousin will be able to add to the information with a death date, burial location or children, etc.

'Nothing further known at this time' is truly the status of all genealogy research - it's the journey in the discovery that takes these individuals from a mere series of names and dates and breathes some life into them that keeps me going. 

© 2010, copyright Travis J. LeMaster http://tjlgenes.blogspot.com

3 comments:

Barbara Poole said...

"Nothing further known at this time" seems like a smart thing to write, and let's the reader know of the current status. I thought too, people would get bored with names, dates and locations, but I love it when distant cousins connect because of the blog.

Travis LeMaster said...

Thanks for the encouragement. You are right about distant cousins connecting through the blog...just had one contact me today!

TK said...

Travis, as you've noticed already, I started doing something similar at Before My Time last month. I couldn't agree more with you--it's been very "instructive and enlightening" for me to slow down and focus on the basics of each line. Even if the resulting post is less than thrilling, I think in the long run it will be useful for readers to be able to find more easily a connection where one exists.