What do you get when you cross genetics, politics, history, geography, and a crossword puzzle? Why, genealogy of course. Backed by the bible, and supported by the church, we as members of the church are all (even in a small way) part of the most complicated and difficult puzzle the world has ever seen; one unlikely to be solved in my lifetime.
I was bit by the genealogy bug when I was around thirteen years old. My parent bought our first IBM-compatible PC, and so we could finally run PAF. After some amount of searching, our local family history guru located a gedcom in the church's own files submitted by a relative which detailed our family's history as far back as the 1100's. (in reality it stretched back further, but of course we all know that pedigrees were bought and sold routinely back then, so the probability of true data is vanishingly small) I could never have imagine how much fun it would be to look back at the names of people long since dead and imagine how many of their traits I still carried in my own genes
Later on of course, computer evolved, I matured, and a dot matrix printout seemed old hat. I married a beautiful midwestern girl with no documented genealogy to speak of (finally my chance to do new research!). A brief stint working technical support at MyFamily.com (parent company of Genealogy.com and Ancestry.com) ingrained the bug even further, and here I am today. With software, laptop, and internet in hand I forge through old records the way earthworms break through mounds of dirt. I'm covered and surrounded, but I'm loving every second!
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