Deep Roots Family Tree Blog

Researching family history has been a hobby of mine since my late teens. There are times when I take a break, and I can leave it alone for several months, at most a year or so, but it always pulls me back and there are usually new documents that have been uploaded during my time away. There is something about finding that one document or breaking down a brick wall that itches a scratch in my brain that nothing else can. One of the things that brings me back after a little break is a new episode of Finding Your Roots.

Finding Your Roots is a TV documentary series on PBS, which I watch on Amazon Prime, that premiered in 2012 and looks into the family histories of different celebrities hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. I always look forward to a new episode.

As someone who is likely neurodivergent, I need many different sources of stimulation to keep my brain occupied. I would either work on my own research, play a video game, read a book, or write, like I am doing right now, with an epsiode playing in the background. Because of my tendency to multitask, I know I miss things at times. I have decided to start re-watching the Finding Your Roots series and give it my entire attention, focusing on different research techniques and paying more attention to the documents they use to tell the stories, taking notes, writing down important dates in history all the while wishing that I had payed more attention to history classes in highschool and college.

Someday, I would like to consider myself a legitimate geneaologist and help people with their own family trees and stories. One step would be to become a member of the Geneaological Society of Alaska and/or the National Genealogical Society. I once had a chance to volunteer with the National Genealogical Society virtually, helping with a census project, but life got in the way. I plan to try to volunteer again. Bucket list item would to attend a national conference.

In the meantime, I’m thinking about starting a club on Fable, a virtual book club that also has a section for TV shows, to hopefully get more people interested in where their families come from. The world is a very dark place right now and going back into history is a way for me to escape. Fable would allow me to start a club to discuss the different episodes, like you would with chapters in a book.

My coworkers are so kind and gifted me this journal for my birthday:

…and what better way to use that journal than to note the progress in the different family trees that I’m working on, and to also make notes during my re-watch of Finding Your Roots. Then, I plan to do a post here on WordPress and on Fable. Will I get readers and followers? Who knows. But I would be documenting my journey and hopefully my passion will shine through and benefit me on this quest to becoming more than an amateur geneaologist.

Finding Your Roots has 11 seasons spanning from 2012 to 2025, all with 10 epiodes except for season 6 which has 16. Each episode delves into the lives of two different celebrities. So that would be 116 blog posts total. Going back to my neurodivergence, I am one of those people who has a tendency to start a project and abandon it for something more exciting. I’m hoping this project is something I can be  consistent with and actually finish. It’s been a long time since I watched the first season(s) of the show and I am really looking forward to re-watching them.

Season 1, Episode 1 features Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis. Stay tuned.