What kind of a tree represents me?

So, I've found this great new thing called blogging...  well, it isn't new and I didn't just find it, but I did just get started doing this blog thing for myself.  I found all kinds of great blogs to read.  I found the Carnival of Genealogy.  I read many great blogs in the hours I spent reading the Carnival of Genealogy.  I haven't read all of the subjects because life happened and I had to work and keep up with my three teens and hubby.  I look forward to reading more from the COG.  I also look forward to the challenge of writing my own blog posts for the COG.  So, here is the first challenge that I am trying.

The topic for this edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is: What tree best represents your family’s history? Is your family most like a towering redwood, weeping willow, or a stately oak? Maybe you think of your family more like a brightly lit Christmas tree or a tropical palm.  Carnival of Genealogy

I really want my tree to be a palm tree... the one with the bushy, soft fonds, but I would really take any kind of palm tree to be the tree that represents my family.  They are found in warm climates often by the ocean.  They are exotic and beautiful! 

Sunset & Palm tree

So, totally not my family.  We are not exactly exotic and we don't come from warm climates.  I would think that most of my ancestors didn't ever even see the ocean, let alone leave the midwest to live by it.... Well, until us.

In December 2001 we went to southern Florida to find where we were going to live.  I moved my family down to the sunshine state in August of 2002.  My parents moved down Thanksgiving that year.  Grandpa Wells was living with Mom and Dad and told me one time while we were walking on the beach in the middle of winter that he didn't know why it took so long to move to FL.  My mom's sister, N, was down there already and sister B moved down not too long after.  Grandpa had 3 of his 4 girls, along with his oldest grandchild and his only (at the time) great grandchildren, living in Southern Florida.

My mother's parents, Harvey Wells and Fern Lenore Beal Wells, lived most of their lives together in Mulvane, Kansas.  They were both from Illinois, as were their parents, Walter Raymond Wells, Ethyl Neal, Alma Lorene Melton, Everett Randolph, Harold Beal.  AND back further.... We are Midwest on my mother's side.

What about my father's side?  And what kind of tree is stuck in the Midwest, and is fairly strong. 

My Grandma Margaret Naomi Curtis Arnold was very into genealogy.  She had done her research and gotten into DAR and a couple of other organizations.  Her parents, Elbert William Curtis and Eunice Florinda McGoon Curtis, were both from MO.  All four of her grandparents died in Missouri.  They all knew each other, mainly through church.  Six of her great-grandparents are buried in Missouri and the other 2 are in Iowa.  So definitely some kind of Midwestern tree.

Grandma did some research on her husband's family.  Grandpa Fredrick James Arnold was from Kansas City area and Lake of the Ozarks.  His grandparents were also from the Midwest, as far as my grandma had researched.  So, both of my father's parents have roots that are in the Midwest.

I moved to Florida to be a palm tree, but we didn't stay.  I have since moved back to Missouri to raise my children.  I guess I really am a Midwest tree.

Getting Started Blogging, not in genealogy....

This is not as easy as it seemed like it would be.  Doesn't it happen either one way or the other.  Either we think it will be easier than the task really is, or we think it will be hard and it turns out easy.  So is the way of the blog. 

I have been reading various blogs about genealogy and thought it would be fun to try my own.  And once I figure out how to link other's blogs to mine, I will do that.  It is so much fun to read what others have written, both about their own families and their research.  I only hope that mine is as productive for me as theirs seem to be for them.

jody