Early Americans and the Hardest Time Period to Research

Well, I have been enjoying time lately researching my early American ancestors and just found a reference to one of them today calling him the "Founder of Medfield, Massachusetts".  His name was Ralph Wheelock and one of his direct descendants founded Dartmouth College.  At some point, my love of genealogy gets mixed in with my love of history and before you know it, I've lost an afternoon visiting the 17th century!  When I read something like that, I want to know so much more - what is Medfield like today? is his tombstone on Findagrave? did I make a record of this in my notes because soon enough I'll be onto another project and forget all about Ralph Wheelock and Medfield, MA?!!

One of my goals in life is to share this information with my siblings, nieces, nephews, and children.  I could do a really cool book through Shutterfly.com or even create an amazing video book with photos and voice overs.  It doesn't matter how I relay the information as long as it will be in some format that will last for awhile.  It's a well known fact that the younger generation may not be interested in Ralph Wheelock today but might be glad to know about him when they've aged a little bit - as we all did!

I have been doing a LOT of writing lately - working on my first book on genealogy which should be completed soon, writing articles for Casto Connections, presentations for Ancestorville Genealogy, and have totally neglected my blog - sorry, guys!  I'll try and do better!

My next subject for the book and presentation is going to be how to tackle a really tough (at least for me) time period to research - early 1800's to about 1850.  If you get too dependent on census records, you get stuck right in there and forget about all the other source material available - wills, town records, family genealogies, and so many more!  It's just a time period where you need to think a little more creatively and I thought about creating a form that would have a checklist of sources that should be examined for information.  There's probably something like it already on in cyberspace - will check and let you know!

Happy Hunting!

Danita