How Did I Get Here? is the result of 18 years of research, a desire to tell the truest story possible of our ancestors, and a belief that genealogy needn't be boring; it can, in fact, be fascinating, tragic, hilarious, and moving.
I began researching my ancestry in 2005, when two of my relatives died without my ever having met, or even spoken to them. It was then that I realized how little I knew about my own family, and then that I began a life-changing journey. In collecting those first few names and dates, I was hit with the epiphany that if any one of those people had done anything even slightly differently, I very well may not exist. It was then that I first asked myself "how did I get here?"
All these years later, I have only just begun to answer that question. I have learned a whole lot about some ancestors, and absolutely nothing about others. I have collected thousands of names and dates, but only a handful of detailed stories. I have traced myself back to Charlemagne on one side and still don't know my great-grandfather's name on another. I have dug in deep, and barely scratched the surface.
This site, quite simply, is a collection of everything I have learned, and questions I have not yet answered. It is built of every photograph I have ever found, every record I've been lucky enough to stumble upon, every gravestone I've stood beside. It is the result of eighteen years of trying to answer the question of just how I got here.