The path of Genealogy

I am distracted by yet another book - Present at the Creation: The Story of CERN and the Large Hadron Collider. Although this book doesn't appear to have any genealogical content; it is one of my strong interests. How does this book fit into genealogy? It doesn't except for the nagging question that is always there in one's mind especially after you do your mtDNA test. Where did we come from? How far back can we trace ourselves looking at our mtDNA? Creating the "Big Bang" that is believed to have started our atoms on their way towards the fulfilled Homo sapiens that we now represent. Will we evolve further? What new traits can we/will we acquire as the line moves forward in time? With five great grand nephews our family genes move forward in time although with a different surname. I find even yet there isn't that strong desire for grandchildren that so many have by my age. Perhaps when I am 75 I will feel that desire but somehow I doubt it. I tend to just live by the day thanking God for each new morning and trying to accomplish as much in His Name as I can each day. For truly I see my pursuit of genealogy as a task for God as I lovingly transcribe the ancient texts of the Church - Parish Records. It is something that I can do as my part in the Great Quest.

I have discovered a transcription of some of the Hampshire Protestation Returns which was a wonderful find. I shall soon put them into an excel file and see what they might reveal to me in terms of life in the 1641-42 period.  I shall post the applicable ones to my blog for others to share and use in our mutual family research. Likely I shall place the entire file on my webpage. That will take me a little time.

I also want to spend some time on our son-in-law's French Canadian families and in particular a couple of Irish lines. I would like to learn more about them and will do a couple of dedicated research days at Library and Archives Canada. I have found some like minded people using the tree (private) on Ancestry. The more people working on some of these "hidden" lines the better. Just a single Irish family arriving in Quebec in the early 1800s is really difficult to solve I find,. If they came at the time of the famine there are really terrific records but at the end of the 1700s and early 1800s fewer traces to pick up. This gentleman arrived with his children his wife having died in Ireland. Even the spelling of their last name is in dispute.

But I must admit at the moment I am immersed in reading a total of five books. My eyes need a longish rest and so I always find that book reading tends to give me that and keeps me away from the microfiche reader screen and the computer screen.