Summer's almost over...

I have a lot to do with just one month of summer left before school starts. I always work on every side of the family at once, since there are some branches that overlap and every side is rooted in the same county.

I should focus completely on the Thorson side, since the reunion is coming up. I mostly need to verify some of the info I already have by copying the Bygebok pages and getting copies of documents. I also have already called a lot of the extended relatives, many of them said they had old pictures but weren't sure who they were of. It would be good to just check with them anyway.

I started adding all of the photos I have scanned to my ancestry tree. I'm not sure if this is a good idea yet. I like that it will be more complete and accessible, and that others can see just how to scan and fix these things. I don't like the idea though that people will take all my info and photos and not let me know! I don't mind sharing everything, so long as I get credit for it. It's also important to keep this source information so that mistakes can be corrected later.

Photo: Sjur L. Bjørgo with wife Ingeborg and daughter Bertina Strinmoen. Detail of house photo. Highland Township, Winneshiek. To be included in my Thorson ppt presentation.

Introduction Post

Hello,

I'm creating this blog now as a diary/journal for my genealogy research. It's much easier typing than writing and then losing hard copies, and this way it is more accessible to any relatives or other genealogists that want to look over some of the progression I've made to obtain certain information and I can explain some of my methods.

I started really searching for info a couple years ago and it really took off after it became more of a search for old photographs of relatives. But I have much more than just photos! I recently got way way way too into it all and started adding any families that were from Winneshiek county to my family tree program. So many different families are connected in odd ways, that it helps to know who went where regardless of their relation. Also, relatives' friends and neighbors' names often come up in genealogy related searches and it's good to know more about these people.

I also wanted to put this out there, because I was so tired of reading about other people doing genealogy on the internet who are researching the South or Northeast US families that are only of British, Irish, or German descent!