About Me

     I'm Jen Rickards aka Auntie Jen! Welcome to my blog. Let me tell you a little bit about me. I chose the name Auntie Jen because my nephews always refer to me as Auntie, and It's also a name that I've used in the past for one of my Great Aunts. And who do you always get the greatest stories and information from? Your crazy Aunt, of course. Aunts always seem to have not only the best stories but the most secrets, and my research has definitely unearthed plenty.
     I first got into genealogy in 2012. I had just moved back to Missouri from Colorado in 2011 and my grandma (pictured left with me) wanted to pass special things along to me since she was getting along in years. She also gave me a couple of boxes of old photos to do with as I pleased. She knew how much I loved photos. I was excited to go through them because I'd never seen them before. They were just thrown into the boxes, with no rhyme or reason. Some were water-damaged, torn, or just not in very good condition. There were a lot of photos with people I did not know. I was surprised to see some photos dated back as early as the 1900s. Wow! So I decided to take on the daunting task of labeling these photos.
     I knew the first thing I needed to do was to create a tree. I started filling in the names and dates that I knew for sure. One thing that helped tremendously was a little datebook that had been passed down. Half of it was written in German, and the other half was translated. That helped with tracing back to my 3x great-grandma. (I have since learned some of the information in this book was incorrect) Once I started plugging in names and getting hints and documents, I was hooked.
     Now I'm working on both mine and my husband's family trees. I've been able to trace most family members back to when they first came to the United States. I've found cases of murder, insanity, war heroes, and interesting stories about run-ins with historical figures. One of the most exciting things I've been able to connect with quite a few long-lost family members through my blog.

Experience

    Coming Soon

  
     The purpose of this blog is to share my journey through genealogy. I hope the information I gather about my family will be helpful to others possibly researching the same line. I will also share tips I've learned about doing genealogy research as well as information about local history and how to find certain records. Don't forget to check the other tabs at the top of my blog. I have a YouTube Channel and I share some crafts relating to family history. Thank you for stopping by my blog and I hope you follow along with me as I climb my trees to see what kind of nuts fall out.