Saturday, August 24, 2013

Anyone Know Of A Good AA Group Around Here?



This is the line that really has me strung out!

Despite our frequent warnings, this past week my wife and I had a friend of ours finally take the plunge and get onto ancestry.com. Since then we have noticed a significant increase in their time spent online sometimes going well past midnight. Of course, this is one of the early warning signs and my wife finally got to the point that she had to ask the question that was also floating around in the empty space of my mind, “Are you getting too addicted already?!?!”

We ask because we are and, if need be, we will have an intervention. We know the signs all too well and we know the constant pull that the website has during all hours of the day and night. We are Ancestry Addicts and we are proud of it.

Unfortunately, I don’t think our friend really knows what they are getting themselves into. It starts with a small hit and a high that is just enough to make you want more. Soon it is never enough and you are spending hours at a time on the computer without even knowing it. One night you get on for a quick search at 10:00 PM and before you know it the light peers through the blinds and it’s time for breakfast.

And, if that wasn’t bad enough, it gets worse. Soon your reaching out to relatives you haven’t spoken to in years grilling them for more details about a cousin you just discovered or an Aunt that caused a ruckus in her neighborhood in 1924 because she didn’t care for the art deco designs. That’s when you find that only an addict knows how to satisfy and addict. The rest of the world doesn’t care if your great great grand pappy had the grandest outhouse in the county and before you started chasing the genealogical dragon you didn’t care either.

There really is no end to the vicious cycle of research and discovery and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am a heritage hoarder and an ancestry addict and I’m darn proud of that fact. I am finding out who I am by finding the people that made my family what it is today. I will continue to search and I will always look for new places to explore. And while I am looking elsewhere I will continue to return to the tree and, occasionally, partake in some of the good stuff, the easy highs, that come about when a new leaf appears and taunts me with its shimmy.

Yeah, I have problems but I can’t stop to think about that now, I have more work to do and files to organize. So while I’m gone feel free to comment and let me know of any good Ancestry Anonymous groups that might be out there. It’s always better when you get high with others.

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