I started working on the family genealogy back in the late 1970's when "Roots" was popular. I had my family traced back to my great grandparents, and from there, it became difficult as I needed to get records from the Netherlands. My interest in boyfriends took off, and my interest in genealogy got put to the side. In 2003, when talking with my mother-in-law about my husband's family, she told me that his great grandfather was Alonzo Emerson Lowry from Keokuk, Iowa. In 2005, I finally found the family in the census, and have been continuing to research the family since then.