Many, many years ago my mother got into a mood to do some genealogy research on our family.  She talked to lots of older relatives, and pored through stacks and stacks of old records, and wrote down everything she learned.  Some time later, in about 2002, I decided to try to pick up where she left off.  I had the basic knowledge of our family tree back two or three generations and with the help of the Internet I was able to go back quite a bit farther, especially along certain key lines whose families have done a great deal of research.  Recently I've delved back into it, and the volume of new information on the Internet is just astounding.  Just to amuse the kids, and myself, I even prepared a sheet called "Sixty Generations of Ethan and Delaney."  Admittedly, about 55 or 56 generations back, folklore is all there is to go on.  The secondary research was completed some six hundred years ago, but that's still fourteen hundred years after the fact.  When you get down to it, no one has any way of knowing for sure about things that happened that long ago with any precision.  Still it's fun to look and say, "This is the way it might have been."  I did learn that if you go back far enough, you're probably descended from kings.  I'm descended from a whole slew of them.  Chances are everyone is related to at least one.  They have lots and lots of children.  Still, I suppose it's something to be proud of, having the blood of the first kings of Ireland, Scotland, and England all flowing within my veins, diluted as it is by blacksmiths, cobblers, and pig farmers.  I'd encourage everyone to find about their ancestors.  The hard part is just getting past those first few generations.  After that you can probably pick up some distant cousins' trails, who share the same ancestors.  Maybe even mine.

Okay, now it looks like I can publish to my blog with nothing more than a keystroke to get things rolling.  I might be more encouraged to actually do it.

Test run, with Scribefire.