About writing blog posts

 

I just passed another milestone in my blog posting. Genealogy's Star blog now has 6016 posts. With all the other blogs, including Walking Arizona, I have 12,807 blog posts online. There are actually a few more on long abandoned blogs. I figure that about every 1000 or so blog posts, I will take some time to talk about blogging, genealogy, and the known and unknown universe. 

When I was young, writing was painful. I have never been able to write for long by hand. I am certain that writing was never on my list of things I wanted to do in my life. I think the catalyst that started me writing was the determination in about 1976 to begin writing a journal every week. I have continued my journal writing up to the present and I am sure that my posterity (whatever) will never read the thousands of pages I have written. In addition, I have done an estimated 200 or so webinars and other videos that are all online.

There are two overriding factors in writing: persistence and passion. You have to really like and care about what you write. You also need the discipline to keep writing even when you don't feel like writing. I have read about and watched movies about people with "writer's block." Whatever that is, I have never had it. I do get too tired to do much of anything, but the minute I sit down to write I usually have a few minutes of thinking and then I begin writing.  I am pretty sure that if I was writing solely for the reason that I wanted to make money, I would have quit long ago. Not that it wouldn't be nice to make a few bucks, but I can think of a lot of other ways to make money that don't involve sitting in front of a computer day after day. 

When the pandemic hit in March of 2020, being sequestered inside did not affect me much at all. I did miss some social interaction, particularly working at the Brigham Young University Family History Library, attending church meetings in person, and being able to travel, but since almost all of my activities had been focused on writing in front of a computer all day and into the night, there wasn't much of a change. 

I have repeatedly said that if genealogy was not complicated and challenging, I would have lost interest long ago. It is even more challenging when you do genealogy in multiple languages. I am always happy to talk to or connect with online with people who share my passion for history and genealogy. It is also hard work. I am appalled when people trivialize genealogy with descriptions that it is fun or easy. The word "fun" is like the word "free." There is no real definition for both words. They are used to describe things that are even life threatening and very expensive. This brings up another word used in conjunction with genealogy and that is "hobby." Collecting things can be a hobby. Making things can be a hobby. Gardening can be a hobby. But genealogy is not a hobby although there are plenty of people who think that you can do genealogy in small increments. Small increments work for the first two or three generations, but usually by the time you find out that the next date, name, or place will take some research you either get serious about genealogy or you give up. I am fully aware that people can become passionate about their hobbies, but hobbies are generally for relaxation or leisure time not intense study trying to decipher old handwriting.  Oh, and remember, genealogy now requires a fairly high degree of computer and internet sophistication.

Now what is the purpose for doing genealogy? There are all kinds of studies that show how finding out about your ancestors can provide you with a sense of place and worth. Of course, that depends, in large part, whether your ancestors' lives were the kinds of lives that provide a sense of place and worth. Because I am an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it would appear that being interested in family history would come with my membership. Unfortunately, only a very few members of the Church are really involved in family history. My own motivation is very complicated. I guess I am fascinated by the process of solving puzzles and working through the unknown to find people and their families. 

Fortunately, my ancestors were mostly pioneers so I have a lot of stories about survival and perseverance in the face of tragedy.  With my immediate family, we also figure out all the genetic issues we have inherited. Our progress in finding more information about our huge family is always a current topic. 

At the core of what I do is the satisfaction that comes from helping people overcome their own challenges in finding their families. I do know that in our society, ignorance about our ancestral roots causes many people to assume that they are "white" whatever that means when in fact they are the descendants of many different cultures. My current DNA tests show matches to people in almost all parts of the world and hundreds of countries. For example, hundreds of my Jewish relatives died in the Shoah (incorrectly called the Holocaust). Finding this information through genealogical research changes both your world view and your sense of who you are. My own ancestors were driven out of their homes by mobs and forced out of the United States. These parts of my heritage would not be know by me if I had not done the genealogical research over many years. 

How do you communicate the weight of all those people on the decisions you make in your life? How do you live without knowing your own background and heritage?