Ancestry

My Great Great Grandfather from Norway

Over the past few weeks I've been doing tons, and I do mean tons of research online and in books on Houdini and magic history. In the course of that research I found a site called archives.com. I have to admit I was not thrilled with that site though because every step along the way they wanted me to pay more money for information, so I quit and went a different route.

One of the last things I did look up while I was there was some family information, just to see if it would show up. I found a record for what I thought was my grandfather but wasn't really sure. I did that about two weeks ago. Well for whatever reason on Friday evening I got the urge to check out the family history/family tree and I decided to try ancestory.com. Imagine my surprise after just 30 minutes how much information I was able to turn up. In two days time I have parts of my family dated back to the 1600s! And other parts dated to when they arrived here in America.

I found some relatives in Norway, I found relatives here in America I didn't know about. It's wild how much information is available. Most of the work is done through census records and you can view and print the actual census records (something archives.com wanted you to pay more just to see). The photo is of my Great Great Grandfather who came to America from Norway in 1869. When you go back that far in years you end up with more and more Grandparents from each side of the family. You figure in  your immediate family you have your grandparents on your Fathers Side and Mothers side, that's two sets or 4 people. But your parents have grandparents so that's 4 more on each side or 8 more people. It keeps multiplying from there as you go back in time. It's pretty wild actually.

The archives.com system is set up so well that it almost becomes like a video game to see how far you can go. It's quite addicting. Needless to say, today I'm taking a break from the fun and getting back to work, more mailings to work on, more preparation to do for 2011. Looking forward to an exciting year!