Why genealogy?

I listen to a few genealogy podcasts. One of them, and I think it's the Genealogy Guys, asks people their genealogy story--how and why they are genealogists. I thought I'd take time now to (briefly) share my genealogy story.

My sophomore year in high school my psychology teacher, who was an avid genealogist, came to me to talk about starting a genealogy club. Gene-what? I had no idea what it was, but she explained it to me as learning the history of my family. Coincidentally, I had attended a family reunion that past summer and was really interested in learning more about my family. My paternal grandmother's family, the McCants of Dorchester County, SC, had fleshed out a large tree with names, but no stories. I remember thinking, "What were these people like? What did they do? How did they live?"

Long story short, I was hooked after my first visit to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. (little did I know how lucky I was to live so close to the Archives). I felt like a detective searching for clues! Most importantly, every time I learned something about my family, I felt like I was learning something about myself.

I still love the mental aspect of genealogy. I love the analyzing and piecing together of clues. Genealogy is the only hobby that combines my love of logic puzzles and the analytics of my career (engineering).

Anyway, just wanted to share!

My links are delicious!

I'd like to share the interesting genealogy websites I've found. I post all my links on del.icio.us. You can access them by going to my del.icio.us site, isosblogs. With del.icio.us, you can subscribe to an RSS feed of my links. If you set up an account yourself, you can add yourself to my network and you'll be notified everytime I add a link.

If you don't know much about del.icio.us, check my tech etc. blog, BoredomMakesYouBlog. I'll have a post about del.icio.us and the other social bookmarking sites up there before the end of the week.

Sankofa - Welcome to the Uncommon Roots Blog

Welcome to the Uncommon Roots blog! This blog will focus on African-American genealogy resources and research techniques to help tackle the unique obstacles that researchers face when looking for ancestors of African descent.

I'm your guide, Isos, and I'll be sharing and guiding you through the process of discovering your Uncommon Roots. I have over a decade of experience in genealogical research and I want to help others in their search.

Our theme in this blog is Sankofa: you cannot know who you are until you know from whence you came.

I hope I'm able to help you learn who you are!