I've spent much of the past week doing genealogy rather than logic. I've decided that the easiest, most interesting way for me to approach it is to go back to a certain period and follow my ancestor' families forward through time to get information on relatives, distant or otherwise. I started with the late 18th and early 19th century, since so many interesting and colorful stories are associated with my LDS (Mormon) ancestors.  So far there are four major groups, one associated with each of my grandparents: The Coons-Curtis-Plumb group; the Barr-Wells-Richards-Sangston-Harris group, the Lee-Fish group, and the McNeil-Hendrix-Rogers-Mayer group.

I'm accumulating some interesting stories, that is, interesting to me. There are several reasons I'm doing this. One of them is to learn to know who my ancestors were, and who my relatives are, by examining their families. We don't live in isolation: brothers, sisters, uncles, cousins, in-laws, and the like all influence us, and I want to examine my ancestors and relatives lives in family context.  Most fo us don't know who our relatives are until we go looking.