4 Reasons Why Geneology is Fun

Now you know that I think genealogy is a lot of fun. Here are four reasons why:

1.  Everyone Loves a Mystery

I know my great-great grandfather Henry Odaffer died — I guess because we all do.  But for the life of me I can’t determine where he was buried.

His wife, Elizabeth is buried in the New Tarleton cemetery near Tarleton, Ohio, and her tombstone (right)  stands there, welcoming you in, near the front gate.  There is absolutely no evidence she divorced the guy, but Henry’s grave is nowhere to be found.

I have a folder full of clues, but finding Henry’s grave has been a tough nut and I am still trying to crack it.

It is an unsolved mystery of the first order. No need to buy that next mystery on Kindle–you’ve got several, ready to solve, right here in the Odaffer Family genealogy files.

 2. Oh, the Places You Go and the People You Meet

A trip to Grub, Germany, to meet a relative who helped tie our family to Germany was quite an adventure.

But I was a little apprehensive as I knocked on the door of an old house in the center of Grub.  I had been told that one of the oldest living members of the German Odoerfer clan lived there, and he might have some exciting tales to tell

A grizzled, but delightful, old man and his docile wife came to the door, and I knew I would be rewarded by hearing what they knew about the family.

But the biggest surprise came when they called for their daughter to meet the visitors from the States. You could have knocked me over with an old goose feather when she appeared in the doorway.  She looked just like my sister Jane.

3.  The Exhilarating Thrill of Discovery

I was totally worn out from the Washington D.C. meeting, but I sucked it up and grabbed a cab to the Daughters of the American Revolution Library.

After three hours of searching, all I found was a dry well. As I decided to call it a day and limp home to bed, the old saying,  “Whoever said ‘seek and you shall find’ was not a genealogist” kept running around in my mind.

As I walked down the last isle of the stacks, it happened.  I will never know why, but I saw, picked up, and thumbed through a single book below from the hundreds of books on the shelves.

I had never even given a thought that an O’Daffer could have been a Hessian soldier, but there he was, Johann Wolfgang Odoerfer, on page 76.  And he was the connecting link between the U.S. and German Odoerfers/Odaffers.

 4. Surprise Humor Around Every Corner

Finally, there was the Odaffer farmer in Ohio, who had made it abundantly clear that he wanted a son to help in the fields and take over his farm.  He had eight daughters in a row after that fateful declaration.

So there you have it.  Try it — you’ll like it.  And I haven’t even mentioned the philosophical and life lessons you learn from being involved in genealogy –but that’s the subject of another post.