COMING UP FOR AIR

I'm still working on adding my Ellingwood cousins to my Ancestry
family tree, and I find myself happily spending hours entering
names and dates, looking for records on line and adding my
sources as I go along. It's easy to become lost in the hunt as I
find information that has me asking questions, such as why can I
find evidence of a person that was supposedly married only
twice was actually married three times? Or does the cause of
death "stricture of the esophagus" on a New Hampshire death
record refer to a medical cause or hanging? And where did some
of the unusual names come from that were given to the children?

As I said, it's easy to become lost. I tell myself I'll go to bed as
soon as I finish an entry, but then there's the children to enter, and
then their children, and there are images of records to download.
And this could go on for quite awhile, because the Ellingwoods
were a prolific bunch, and besides my New England kin there were
some who migrated to Michigan and California, and some who
emigrated to Canada before the Revolution. I then can move on
to other lines in my ancestry, the Barkers, Dunhams, Ames, and
all the others.

I think only other genealogists, along with historians and archaelogists,
would consider this as fun. But it's like putting together a giant jigsaw
puzzle, and it's fascinating. This has been what has filled my evenings
for the last month, and every once and awhile I come up for air.

And then I dive right back in again.