Today is the beginning of Family History Writing 2014.

Lynne Palermo, from http://www.thearmchairgenealogist.com/ challenges all of us to place a family history story on our blogs every day this month. She’s also created an online forum so that those of us participating can ask questions and share our work with one-another.

I’m participating for the first time. My challenge is to begin communicating some of the stories about ancestors identified by my grandmother, Anne Marguerite Hurtubise Arial, in a family tree that goes back to 1589. Looking through her documents shows how hard researching family history used to be prior to the on-line resources we have today. Marguerite’s documents include letters to researchers, cousins and authorities, mostly in Quebec, where many of her ancestors hail from. She’d be blown away by the National Archives digital resources now available via http://www.banq.qc.ca/, especially Iris and Pistard.

Although all of her work seems to be accurate so far, few sources and original documents are included in the package of material passed on to me. After digitizing her work, I’m now redoing her research and attaching sources to it for future generations. I’m also working on the family tree on my mother’s side.

This month, I’ll share some of the stories I’ve discovered while redoing her research.

Note: This post is cross-posted from http://arialview.ca.