I’m one of those people who doesn’t have much in the way of family. I was raised as an only child, and I only ever met one of my grandparents, on account of two of them being in Germany and one of them having died many decades before I was born. So genealogy always seemed to me to be a lost cause. I’ve made several attempts over the years at trying to find out who my ancestors were, but since I didn’t have much information to go on, I kept running into dead ends before I ever really got started.

Now comes the part where the internet enters the picture and saves the day. There are so many skilled amateur genealogists out there researching their families, but it never occurred to me that someone could be out there researching my family, or that indeed many people already had. Thanks to the network of family tree gardeners out there, I’ve finally made the breakthrough I’d been trying to make for twenty years: finding out who my grandfather was and getting a copy of his death certificate. That has opened up the floodgates, as it were, and just that little nugget of information has now led to me finding no fewer than 105 relatives over the past week. I feel overwhelmed and shocked and emotional and everything else you might expect.

I’m particularly surprised and delighted at the number of old photos one can find online. Above is the family of Thomas and Ardelia Glimp (seated), and the woman standing fifth from the left (behind the rocking chair) is my great-great-aunt, Ardelia Glimp Baker. I can’t believe how much I’ve learned about my history in such a short time. A week ago I had no idea any of these people ever existed.