I began working on my family history in February 1987 while I was still living back in Rochester, New York. All my life I had heard the tales from my mom about my family: a descent from Sir Francis Drake, an Iroquois Indian ancestor, ancestors who had fought on both sides of the revolution, and the like.

In January, 1987, my mother's mother passed away. A couple of weeks later my Aunt Mary (mom's sister) stopped by the house for some reason relating to my grandma's passing, and as she was leaving, we got to talking. I'll probably never remember how it came up in the conversation, but at one point she looked me straight in the eye and said, "Well, you know, you have an ancestor who came from Portugal to fight in the Revolutionary War."

That did it....something snapped....I now had to learn more about my family's history. Within the next couple of weeks, I pumped my mom and Auntie for all the information I could get out of them - tales they remembered their father telling them. Auntie was kind enough to produce some papers and photographs which, in turn, triggered a flood of memories for my mom and aunt. And then there were the autograph books of my great grandmother that she'd found which proved to be invaluable!

In short order I was soon scouring the nearby ancestral cemeteries where I found more invaluable information (especially two tombstones that no longer exist). Then I learned that the downtown library had a whole room on genealogical information. Between the census records and printed genealogies I was hooked! I quickly became a regular at the library and yadda yadda yadda here I am after all those years.

Last Modified 7 October 1998