If you’ve been reading this newsletter for any length of time, you’ve probably heard me or one of the other columnists recommending that you investigate the friends, neighbors, in-laws, and other contemporaries of your ancestors. Yes, that means more people to organize and more papers to file. (Are those groans I hear?)

I know, I know, I can relate. I have a hard enough time trying to keep track of the people I’ve collected with the same surname who might be related. Start collecting more surnames? For people who might not even be related to my ancestors? You’ve got to be kidding.

Well I did. (Don’t tell my husband. He thinks I was working.) I had a list of sponsors for the baptisms of seven siblings of my great-great-grandmother, Catherine Huggins. I spent an entire day, pillaging and plundering databases looking for any record I could find.

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