So why a family organization?

        Many of us who are researchers realized 15 or so years ago that we were spinning our wheels duplicating each other's work and not really accomplishing much.  So as genealogists we wanted to unify our efforts.

         At the same time it was apparent that there are many traditions within the family that needed to be revisited and either verified or proven false.  Traditions are tricky things.  Some have always been there and some have evolved over time from one thing to something different as each generation puts their spin on the story.

         The last, probably the biggest part was that we were loosing touch with each other.  How many of us are there?  Now that is a good question.  I have a Roots Magic data base that I work from which includes all the descendants I know of.  If I generate a descendancy report for John and Hannah I get over 12,100 people in about 3,800 families, and that is only the tip of the iceberg as it were.  I don't have many of the living descendants so we estimate there are really at least 40,000 to 50,000 of us scattered far and wide.  Obviously we can't bring all these people together but we can try to unite those that are sincerely interested in learning more about our heritage.

         In the next post we will explore the specific activities we have taken to accomplish our goals.