What do you enjoy?
I enjoy a good mystery – from watching crime shows on t.v., to reading a thrilling mystery novel, to hunting down missing members of my family tree. The hobbies I enjoy most all seem to have mystery in common. I suppose it goes to my enjoyment of solving a good puzzle because I also enjoy logic problems and Sudoku.
Every problem has a solution, and I like to find the answers to them.
When it comes to genealogy in particular, I can be quite dedicated to my search when I’m on the hunt of a missing ancestor. My husband would tell you I get obsessed, tunnel-visioned, overly focused. He’s a true genealogy-widow at times. I feel like my family history is my real life mystery to solve and it satisfies for me the desire to case a good mystery to solve.
I’ve found a couple of “interesting” things in my family tree, some of which I have yet to share with my extended family because they are the skeletons in the family closet. They were mysteries I didn’t know needed solving until I found the answers. In other cases, I’ve solved the origins of the first family who came from Ireland, which was a brick wall for years and years. I still have couple of mysteries that I don’t know if I will ever be able to solve – the cases of the missing fathers – two men who both went “missing” within a couple of years of each other, leaving their wives to raise their children alone. One supposedly died in a fall of the ferry in NY harbor, and one likely walked away to never be seen or heard from again.
So, for me, I enjoy the hunt for answers to questions about my past and to the world around me.
