The sirens’s call
Homer warned me. About the sirens’s call, I mean. Enticing enough to have me shoal up on unseen rocks. Or to bleed my wallet… In this case, I’m referring to the subscription site, Ancestry. Where all my questions will be met with little green leaves, growing my research trees from tiny shrubs into mighty oaks.
This was another community research afternoon, where crowd-sourcing of local anecdotes will give way to a bound book, eventually. Although I don’t have much to contribute, my role as a sponge for new knowledge is accepted by those in the know. As for the rest of you. One of the main attractions, for some, is access to online data without that nagging need for a credit card. Not for me, exactly, but I am watchful.
There’s so many questions I could “ask”, after registering and providing prepayment. I’ve restrained myself, so far (Homer warned me), but once the weather turns cold, it could provide “hours and hours of fun for the whole family!” (I learned that from the folks at Kenner) Until then, I’ll slog along with carefully crafted queries into the local newspaper archives and the census lookups.
The meeting ran over, slightly, when someone who had read an old advertisement showed up at “closing time”. I wasn’t there to answer questions, but my extension cord kept the laptop/projector combo powered up. Hard to pull the plug in those circumstance. The dog, patiently guarding the car, didn’t say much when I finally returned, but I could sense the reprimand in his gaze.
