Why the Blog, where do I start?

When I considered retiring several months before I actually did, I had to come up with a new purpose; something I did not have time to do while working. I have been interested in what happens in a person's life between the dit and dit in obituaries. Genealogy is more than dit...dit, each person had to have color.

I promised myself I would write 50 stories of my childhood and back it up with a picture. It was hard getting the door open to go back in time and feel, be, and see. It set me up to understand what I would need to do to write about the ancestors. For those of you who are asking, "Where do I start"? Perhaps the answer is to write about yourself or, find the courage to write about a deceased sibling, as I did with my brother, Greg. Although it may be painful in the beginning, one begins to hear the laughter as you scribe stories; it actually gave me closure.

My decision to read newspapers seemed a good place to start. Since Ranum's, Opseth's, Rye, Anderson, Bloom were all the ancestor's of my children AND they all lived in New Solum Township, which included Rosewood, MN, I felt the paper would spring board me into the day to day color of this part of Marshall County.

I also learned how my childhood city was founded, its people, and its struggles. And, such as it is when choosing any path, the side roads are discoveries on their own. I got into plat maps, land patents, census,draft registrations, and death certificates to support what I had found or five star prove lives never mentioned. If this route has interest to you, check your library for inter library loans.

I have worn shoes stomping through cemeteries photographing grave stones. Kicked up the dust in my yellow pick up driving down gravel roads looking at land, old houses, old churches, and getting the feel for the era of time. One gets a sense of what it may have been like standing in a remote area.

I can pester the geebee's out of sextons, pastors, and grave diggers. I have marked all the graves of the children's ancestor's on mother's side. It doesn't matter to me if they are buried in the pauper's section but it does make a difference if the grave isn't marked.

As a genealogist, I am greedy. No matter how much information I had I wanted more. My sweet Thomas says I pounce on information with a ravenous hunger--ah, such is my plight!

But why the blog? What happened was simple. Although I didn't mind scanning pictures and sending them to common ancestors, I had created my own monster. I had too much information, too many pictures, and too many students who were wanting information. The students needed new questions to ask themselves and a additional directions to focus as well as to be motivated to do research. The families who are following it are finding information they didn't know.

The families keep me on my toes and when I have mistakes, they address them and they are fixed. In the mid eighties, while still married to Bob Anderson, I took his mother's pictures home to Kansas and mounted them; there were 1800+ pictures.

Bob's sister, Shirley had the books since her mother is now in a rest home. We had hoped to have her scan and send specific pictures to me but the photos were stuck tight to the pages. I met Shirley in Grand Forks recently and took all the albums home, remounted them on acid free paper and scanned what I wanted out of them. I have finished that project along with a Table of Context and the books are ready to ship back to her. The number of pictures I scanned is enormous. Thanks to her, I have several to put in the blog.

The old trunk? It is at Warren at the historical society. It is the wooden crate Knute N Ranum brought with him from Norway. I am hopeful the curator will consider selling it to me. It sat on the floor in my grandparent's living room with the few precious pictures stored inside.

Happy day to all!

e