You have to know where you came from to know who you are.

Yesterday, I shared that I've been doing genealogy since I was 17 years old. It has been an amazing journey. I can trace one line back to Judah. To Kings and Queens of England, Scotland, and Norway. Other lines, I can't find anything past the American Revolution. I descend from a pioneer woman who was scalped and gutted by Indians and left to die, but survived on tree sap for a week. And I descend from a guy who died drunken on a city street.

Ancestry.com has a new show starting on NBC on March 5. I will be watching this one for sure! You can see the promo here. It looks great! Sarah Jessica Parker says she is related to those at the Salem Witch Trials. I have ancestors who were part of that. Just shows that we are all connected in one way or another!

Over the last 40 years, people have often told me this is a waste of time. They question why I love genealogy so much. They have even told me I am ridiculous for doing this.

But when you walk on the land where your third great grandfather homesteaded in 1822 and the current owner lets you use your metal detector and your cousin who is studying anthropolgy in college digs up the rings from the horse-hitching post that he would have tied his horse to....it is a moment when you want to know exactly who this man was, who his wife was, what did they look like, do you look like them.....it is an adrenaline rush like no other!

Genealogy and scrapbooking go hand in hand. It is why I started scrapbooking - to preserve the stories, the memories, the photos.

When I learned that we descend from Penelope Stout, I was so entrigued that I did a layout that was one of my first to get published in a book. Great inspiration creates great art!!!

I've been pretty quiet on this blog for the past few weeks as I've been busy with a different type of genealogy project. This is a project researching history as well as family, combining the 2, correcting oral history and locating living descendents of a historical event. And in an arena that I am totally unfamiliar with. I've been researching the Russian Jewish Agricultural Colony at Cotopaxi, Colorado.

About 1973, my dad purchased the Texaco station in Cotopaxi. My brother still lives there. Together, we are building a family tree of the descendants and ancestors of the people who were part of the Cotopaxi Colony. I hope to scrap the photos that have so generously been shared with me.

So stay tuned, as I return to my love of basic paper crafting, watch the new TV series with me, and as we find out where we came from, I will share with you where the Cotopaxi Colonists came from and where they went, and why Cotopaxi has a story to be told.