Who Was My Inspiration - SNGF

It's time for Randy's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge: What event or person inspired you to start your genealogy research?

If I had to say there was just one person who inspired me to begin genealogy research, it would have to be my maternal grandmother. In the early 1980s I "discovered" the family genealogy book she had been working on since the 1960s. It had family group sheets, ancestor charts, and photographs. I was especially enthralled with the photographs, particularly those of the ancestors.

The weird thing is that when I actually started research a few years later it wasn't grandma's ancestors that I worked on - rather it was the lineage of my maternal grandfather which occupied my time for the next 15 years!

In 1983, Mom's first cousin, Richard Phend, had put together a large chart showing the descendants of their great-grandparents, Jacob and Louisa Fisher Phend. I couldn't believe all of those people were descended from just two people and they were all related to me! LOL, how naïve I was.

Among the many other people who have inspired me along the way was Lowell Yarian, whom I met in 1985. He had an RV with cabinets full of 3-ring binders filled with family group sheets. Lowell and his wife traveled throughout the United States in search of anyone and everyone named Yarian, and any variation thereof.

If you'd like some "additional reading" I recommend the 17th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. The topic was "acknowledging and giving thanks to those who have inspired our genealogy research and helped us along the way." It was a small carnival, just 8 posts submitted, but well worth the time to read. My contribution is here.