Well, I started to work on my column for this week early this morning. It's now after 10 p.m. and I still don't know what route to take. As I often do, I turned to my ancestors for inspiration. As I pondered which line to use, I spied an index card that had somehow made it to my desk. It was for my Dooner line. It was obviously meant to be, so I chose to begin my travels with them. (Sometimes, it's just that scientific.)

Now, my office is buried in Dooners and related families, reference and history books are piled everywhere, and even my dogs and cats, who normally inhabit my office while I work, have vacated “the office of the crazy woman.” All of this is telltale evidence of a day of family history fun ... er, I mean, hard work. (I love that I have that excuse! Rather than making me seek professional help for my obsession, they just think I'm a workaholic.)

At any rate, it was a good choice. The Dooners and friends led me through a variety of records available online and I was able to get a few leads. However, the journey I took had quite a few twists and turns as I searched for a good topic. Try as I might, I haven't been able to connect the disjointed pieces. So here we are with some random thoughts that came to me as I meandered through a day of research.

Random thought #1: Review research and look for dates that don't jive.

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