Mary Taylor

I’m in the middle of my first Generation Project. I am focusing on my great-great-grandmother, Mary Taylor.The first step of a Generation Project is to find your why. Here are the questions that the producers of The Generations Project have:

• What do you spend a lot of time thinking about?
• What do you hope will happen to you in the next year or two?
• Tell us a story about a life changing experience.
• What is the biggest challenge you’re facing in your life now?

As I’ve worked thought these question and pondered I’ve decided that the challenge I want/need the most help with now is with the Telling Family Tales web site. I really want this blog to be meaningful. I have a vision of it being a place where all or at least most of the resources that someone wanting to record and keep family stories can come to learn what they need to complete their project. This feels like an overwhelming tasks and I don’t know if I can do it. But I want to. I’ve wanted to do something to help others be more effective in telling their family stories for many years. Then a few months ago the idea of a gathering place of not just what I have done but others information too developed in my mind and that seemed to make so much sense.This idea will take a long time to really develop and I worry if I have what it takes to make it a reality. I’ve taken a few small steps, but for me starting is the easy part. I have much more trouble with staying on task and completing a project.

My great-great-grandmother survived through some really tough stuff and found ways to thrive. I want to find that same kind of strength in me. So there is my why. I’ll post about step two – populate your tree next week.

In the meantime as part of my upcoming Martin’s Cove experience I started sending out emails to those in my family who coming about important dates along Mary’s journey from England to Salt Lake City. I’m going to a series of short posts called 156 years ago today to go along with those emails. I hope you enjoy them.

What are your biggest challenges? Are you thinking about doing a Generations Project too?