From Rags To Riches

I can still remember the intense excitement engendered by a return envelope found in the mailbox from a city or county clerk I had written to weeks, or maybe even months, before. Would it be wonderful news that would take my genealogical work another step forward or simply a form letter saying,"Sorry, we couldn't find the information you requested" ?

When I was first introduced to genealogy letters were the main method of gathering information. I lived in Alaska at the time and already had a large family and travel for research was an impossibility. So the letters went back and forth, mostly at an excrutiatingly slow pace, and progress was realized in baby steps, if at all.

Through the years I kept writing and mailing those letters because when the genealogy bug came along and bit he bit hard and never let go. I became addicted, obsessed , and doomed for the rest of my life-get more documents, walk more cemeteries (no matter what condition they're in!), write hundreds of letters and never give up hope that that old pot of gold will show up some day.

It took a long time coming (about 40 years) but the day has finally arrived when I can see the gleam of gold! It took computers and the internet to accomplish what seems like a miracle and now I have more work than I can possibly do in the time that's left to me. Remember the old saying that goes something like "Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it."?

You see, on three sides of my family I'm lucky enough to be French Canadian. My paternal grandparents and maternal great grandparents were the immigrants.

The priests and notaries of Quebec kept remarkable records of which a great deal is now on line. Between the Drouin Collection on Ancestry.com and the PRDH site at the university of Montreal I can document practically every Quebec ancestor all the way back to France, plus document all of their children! This is an overwhelming amount of available information !!

Granted, PRDH is a secondary source but I feel they're pretty reliable secondaries which I'm going to use because there's no way humanly possible to vist all these parishes and get this info first hand or even have the time to copy it from the microfilms.

Now that I feel like Cinderella of the genealogical world I better get back to work. I'm already on my second printer and may have to get a second job to pay for ink cartridges!