Remember those days hunched over a microfilm reader in a Family History Centre searching for that elusive record that would give you the next branch in your family tree or the census entry for the next ten years of your ancestors' lives? Present day researchers may not have memories of those times but I do. The work was painstaking but there was something about being with fellow researchers that made it more doable somehow. The majority of that kind of research has passed with genealogy databases giving us access to more and more information digitally.
It turns out that even accessing digital information goes better in company with fellow genealogists. Last weekend from Friday to Sunday, I got together with a group of researchers as we pursued out self-appointed research tasks. Mine was to add more branches to my Maidment/Rideout tree. It may be easier to find each individual census entry these days but it was still painstaking. Who knew there were so many children to follow up on? I stuck to my task for all three days. Even with indexes and digital records it took time to get those branches for the family tree.
I went old school, though, and wrote all the entries in a notebook. At this point I don't know what affect adding the new branches will have on my DNA matches, if any. Then again, my supposition that Harriet Maidment was Mary Rideout nee Maidment's sister might be incorrect. It remains to be seen if DNA can prove or disprove anything about the relationship of these two women.
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