Genealogy

Yes, I am one of those...obsessed with my ancestors. I use one of the largest genealogy research companies to help me flesh out my family tree. I have begun keeping it as a 'Private' tree because I have made some mistakes on all of the branches. Now I am busy with correcting as many mistakes as I can. I could find more mistakes if I would just use the higher priced information that is available. But, it's a substantial amount of money and I am not certain that I could keep myself focused on the work to get value for my money. 

The TV program, Finding Your Roots has been helpful for me as it shows me what kind of infomation I should be searching for. It's also a very interesting program; always entertaining.

For instance, I had no idea that 'work houses' were so common. And yes, I have ancestors that had to spend time in one of them. Some of my ancestors were committed to 'asylums' and others were 'transported', which was a common sentence for murder, to the crime of stealing sheep. Transported meant life long banishment from England by sending the convict to Australia. Some times it was banishment to the American colonies or to the tropics where the convict was forced to labor in the sugar cane fieldshose. I also found some relatives that owned 'black slaves' in the South. All of these things are shameful now, but in those days, it was the 'norm'.

Americans have a long history of abusing their fellow humans. The Native Americans were the first in our recent history to be 'punished' because of their appearance.(they weren't white) and their culture. At one time, a reward was given for for the death of a Native American. California had a Chinese Exclusion law. Then there was the round up and imprisonment of Americans of Japanese descent in the 1940s. Also the theft of the Hawaiian islands by the concerted efforts of white Business men. I could go on and on but there is no end to it, any century or any place in the world, people were abusing people because they were different. Murder and theft were and are part of the human genome and it continues today.

Of course there were exceptions to the murder and mayhem. Luckily. And most of this history is simply history.