Welcome to my new blog! I've been researching my family tree for as long as I can remember, really. I always loved to listen to the stories that my Mom would tell me about life when she was growing up in the mountains of Pennsylvania. I was fascinated by the way they lived, with no running water or electricity. It was so different than my own life growing up in the middle-class suburbs of Washington DC. My grandmother on my Dad's side would tell me about his family. She had a great record of people and dates, more of a facts-only approach than my Mom's story-telling. Grandmother was a bit secretive and mysterious and that sense of mystery is also what attracted me to genealogy, I think. There is always the possibility of surprise to it. What was kept secret? What was just lost over time? Who were these people that quite literally make up our DNA? It's the greatest mystery story never written . After about 40 years of collecting these photos, documents, and stories,