I’m Jean, and I’m the skeleton in the closet.
I’ve always known that I was adopted, so no dramatic stories here of my world turned upside down. I had two baby books: one traditional, one designed for adoptees with special pages for the new parents to describe things like “When we first saw you”.
I don’t remember which came first, the Addams Family Tree or the brand new family bible with its wonderful blank pedigree pages; regardless, I was hooked on the idea. Sadly, I have yet to find anyone as entertaining as the Addams’ neighbors in any of my research.
This is a journal of a do-over.
I’ve been doing genetic genealogy research for a little under three years. The tools available have changed dramatically in that time, and my files are a jumble of trial runs of almost every tool as it appeared. The simplest way to organize my files is to start again from zero and focus on the tools I have found the most useful.
I’ll mostly be documenting my own tree, from my data management processes to my research on my matches’ trees, with an occasional detour when something interesting turns up in one of the three other tests I manage.