The response to my genealogical enquiries has been, in a word, pretty fantastic. It seems that all branches of the family are quite interested in the branches that are somewhat buried in time.

Some branches of the family have quite a bit of history available. Steph's grandfather's side, for instance, had family history done by some scholarly fellow back in Germany around 1976. Said fellow documented back to 1600s - so there's not much to do there. My mother's side also had a book done, although I haven't been able to lay a hand on it yet.

But, for example, my dad's paternal side didn't have a lot of family history - so I've had to do a bit of digging on websites like ancestry.com. There's all sorts of information there: birth, death, and marriage records, census records, military records. Sometimes it's a treasure trove...and of course other times it's a dead end.

What's been most interesting is trying to uncover stories and piece together the past. It can be daunting sometimes, but it is rather neat. Perhaps someday this will all come together in some fantastic Alex Haley-esque epic, but for now, getting nuggets here and there is good enough.