I'm a retired carpenter who stays active in my church and community. My huz and I ran a business together for 26 years. I was active in doing genealogy when I was in high school; but dropped it in college and for the next 30 years. I picked it back up again when I retired and have become somewhat addicted to learning more about my ancestry in addition to documenting dates and places. The internet has transformed how we research, and made so many records accessible.

I now live in River Falls, Wisconsin and have lived here longer than where I grew up, so this has become "home" now. I was born in Stevens Point and raised on a potato and crop farm in Plover, Wisconsin. My paternal side has deep roots in that area of Portage County and I tend to research and link together many of the graves in the central Wisconsin area, both of family and of names that I grew up with in that area.

On my paternal side, I descend from these families that emigrated to the United States:

• Isherwood
• Taylor
• Trageser
• Rice
• Ainsworth
• Goodrich
• Fletcher
• Humphrey
• Wanty
• Bennett
• Carpenter
• Manchester
• McMillen
• Mitchell
• Cady
• Keyes

My maternal family settled in the southwestern area of Wisconsin, in the counties of Iowa and Grant. Dodgeville, Ridgeway, Platteville, Big Patch are the areas that I tend to research and link to my heritage:

• Cullen
• Waters
• Quick
• Clayton
• Chapman
• Clark
• Bickle
• Stranger
• Paull
• Cocking
• Smitheram
• Rogers
• Thomas
• Harris
• Tregoning
• Davey
• Sobey

When it comes to findagrave.com, I tend to make a lot of suggested edits. It makes me really happy to link orphaned graves to their parents, siblings, sometimes spouses when I can find a paper trail. I also savor making a memorial for someone who may not have a marker in a cemetery, but there is a burial record or an obituary that lists their final resting spot. I wish I had the money to mark every grave. I will sometimes make a memorial for someone who is not buried in a cemetery, especially if their death occurred over 75 years ago, just so that they are linked to their family. I love that findagrave.com is accessible to anyone and that you can have access to your family tree in your pocket for free (I sincerely hope it remains this way). I love the community of volunteers on here and try to not take it personally when my suggested edits are declined. I just work harder to make sure that I'm using supported documentation to make the edit. We all make mistakes sometimes, and I've been known to proofread some of my edits after they've already been accepted, and then I need to edit again (sorry when this happens).