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Of little or no interest to the reader(?), I post this image to illustrate the “overload” of obituaries I receive from a cousin. “Senior folks” joining friends and family in Heaven. While I’m documenting one… another email arrives, and another. It takes considerable time (for me) because I’m documenting the parents, siblings, children. With each individual, Ancestry may offer five to twenty “hints” and “sources.” Quite likely, a member of the family is already in my database; I expand that branch of the tree. My database isn’t “a tree”; my database is a forest.

Are you curious why an emphasis on obituaries? They are a “gold mine” of valuable family information. So many of my ancestors–and collateral families–lived in the same community their entire life. The dearly loved family member is usually celebrated in their church. The obituary lists parents, siblings, children, grandchildren, etc.–information that won’t be available on Ancestry for years. (This old lady wants her extended family [database] well-documented now because she doesn’t have”years” ahead of her.)