Meanwhile, From Half a World Away . . .

Why do genealogy television shows resonate with their audiences? More to the point, why is it that greater numbers of people show up to read genealogy blogs—and comment, even—once the season begins for programs like Dr. Henry Louis Gates' Finding Your Roots?

Perhaps that is the impetus behind one person from halfway around the world finding her way to a very old post right here on A Family Tapestry. Of course, I can't say exactly why she decided to Google her own name, or why, this time, the search results included a comment to my post which happened to mention, specifically, her own name. But I'm pretty sure I would never have connected with this person who just happens to share a surname with one of my ancestors—an ancestor, incidentally, whose other descendants happen to match up to me, given our same, inherited, DNA patterns.

The comment section of this blog also snagged a few other visitors whom I'd otherwise not have expected to see. One person found the post about the photograph of Baby Fay, found in a northern California antique shop, and wondered about a relationship. Another person stopped in to commiserate, in response to a post from 2015, over the loss of the long-gone website known as GenForum.

Whatever the reason, I'm glad to see an uptick in interest in family history. We all have stories to share, whether spoken on a one-to-one level with our close relatives at holiday gatherings, or shouted from the electronic housetops, like those of us who choose to blog our research progress. Perhaps the good of those programs is that it gives people the sense that "I can do this, too."

The more people who start their research journey, the more people who are out there, hoping to make family connections. And the more opportunities we'll all have to make those connections, share those stories, and have a richer understanding of who our ancestors really were.