A Brand New Blog!

Today, on the two-year blogiversary of my genealogy research blog, Into the LIGHT, I've decided to venture into a new blog adventure, one that will hopefully serve to help others who are researching their family history and/or who are simply searching for any connections to their family artifacts online.

I've been inspired by the many bloggers who so unselfishly give their time and energy to research the lives of others outside of their own ancestral lines.  And then, there are those who invest in the purchase of photographs and other artifacts, and post them online with no more than the hope that these items will somehow find their way to the families they're connected too.  Still others in the blogosphere take the time to share their wealth of knowledge of research techniques, best practices, and so much more, to help us all (and each other) to be as well-learned and efficient in our efforts to uncover the lives and the histories of our ancestors.  All of you who are doing these things in addition to your own research are providing valuable service to the entire genea-community!

For quite some time now, I've been quietly trying to think of a way that I, too, could give back to this wonderful community of researchers.  I've had several ideas, but finally, a few weeks ago, I had that "light-bulb" moment when I realized what I would do.  You see, throughout my years of research, I've often collected information that did not pertain to my own family, but which I felt might be useful to someone.  However, I've never done anything with it!  Some has been lost (unfortunately) to a computer crash, but there are still some things that I have, and with this effort, I plan to begin to collect more.  Although there will be some documents, my main effort is going to be to collect and post "orphan photos" and postcards, and to try to help to unite those items with family members.  Although this is being done by several folks already, I've noticed that there are very few photos of African-Americans being posted, so that will eventually (after these first few) be my area of focus.  I will also pass along research tips, but most will be specific to North Carolina and/or Virgina genealogy research.

My main purpose in creating a new blog in addition to Into the LIGHT is to keep my personal research separate and clutter-free.  I've said before that my research blog is not meant to be a platform for anything else, and in my effort to keep it that way, I've failed to share items of interest which may have been a help to other researchers.  So, with that, I ask that you add this blog to your reader, and tweet or share it with others who might benefit from the occasional, posts that will appear.

As usual, I thank you for reading.  I hope that my genea-friends and all others will accept my new blog, "Genea-Related", as my gift to this community on the second anniversary of Into the LIGHT!

Renate