Geography Bound

I've been wondering if I should give up my work on Erie, Pennsylvania history because I'm moving away soon? I'm not even from Erie, so maybe my interest is fleeting? I won't have ready access to local research sources and I won't get the daily paper anymore. On the positive side, I've bought a couple of the classic local histories and have access to another one online at the Erie County Historical Society's website. Plus, I know the topic pretty well after researching it for over a year. And I've got friends here.

I'm returning to central New Jersey, whence I came a couple of years ago. I've been at Mercyhurst College getting my master's degree. I've been researching on Wikipedia as a hobby and having a lot of fun. Well, there was the time I tried to take Wiki pictures in front of the local television station. They got pretty upset when I went up to the antennae to try to take an art shot. I mean, it was into the sun and my camera is pretty pathetic, but they were ready to call Homeland Security and all. Geez. It wasn't like I was being secret squirrel about it. I parked right out front and walked up to the building. All of a sudden there was someone beating on the glass and warning me off. Oh, well, Such are the times we live in.

I've finishing what can only be described as an "Old School" experience here in Erie. I never tried to lead streakers to the quad, at least not that I remember, but my twenty-something classmates wonder sometimes as this fifty-plus character in school with them. I took up Facebook and became a maven of Web 2.0. It's been invigorating.

I've been keeping up pretty well with my genealogy email. I have an online database of over 60,000 names and I get quite a bit of mail. It's a surname database dealing with the Carr name. They're not all from my line of Carrs, so the individuals are different races, different countries, and different parts of the US. There's no end in sight to the work involved, and that suits me fine. I love puzzles.

So, welcome to my blog. I figure to talk about my experiences on Wikipedia and in my genealogy research. I'll tell you a bit about myself along the way, but not too much as you're probably not all that interested. Now and then I'll encourage you to get involved with Wikipedia by getting an account and diving in as a new editor. And from time to time I'll tell you to interview your elders and take some notes on your family history for posterity. But I won't nag you.