I Caught the Bug...

... the Family History bug!  I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was starting to get in to family history.  Well, it got even more exciting when I started finding people!  I started out by searching ancestry.com for my great-great-great-great-great-great grandpa on my mom's side to see if I could find out more about his family.  One of the search results was in a book called "The Scotch-Irish McElroys in America".  My great-great-great-great grandma's sister married a McElroy, so my grandfather was mentioned in the book for being at the wedding.  I found out a ton of information about the McElroys, and was able to use that information as clues to more information (i.e. census records, death records, etc).  The best part is that the family I was researching actually lived in Boise!  I questioned one of the death dates, and was able to locate the headstone in a local cemetery :-)  Then I spent some time in the library pulling up obituaries, and learned even more about this family.  It was so much fun to add this family to Family Search!

Anyway, now I'm back working on more direct family lines.  Brooke pointed me to a website where I could order personal histories from pioneers who came across the states and through Utah.  Lucky for me, I've got a ton of ancestors in their database.  I submitted my first 9 names (you can only submit 9 in a 30-day period) to get copies of all the information they have on them.  Can't wait to see what I get back!