Like always I let the wind blow the branches of my family tree and work on the one that has smacked me in the head last. Whim blows me from branch to branch and I find each and everyone fascinating. As I connect documents, census records, passenger lists and military records to members I often wonder. What will happen to all of this research when I am no longer around to feed its endless hunger?
I had printed off a copy of the Burgess line of the family back in 2006 and took it to Dad. He enjoyed looking through it and analyzing every little thing. At Dad’s funeral I gave the then 800 page document to my cousin. Duplex printed it still filled a 3 inch ring binder to the max. I realized today that it would now take a bigger binder with the increased information bloating it to 870 pages, 90 of which are the index alone. This 870 page book is just one branch of the entire data base that holds 25,567 individuals and growing.
I have shared some of the documentation with those relatives that I know are interested. I am not sure if my other cousins would enjoy what I have, we seemed to have kept in touch about as well as the generations before us. Aside from posting it to my web site, which is in great need of updating, which takes hours to upload because of the vast amount of information and poor upload capabilities of my service provider, I have the only complete copy. I resist loading my information to some locations because they charge users to view it and use the information for their own purposes, if anyone is going to make money on my time it will be me.