From the Editor

What this Story is All About

My mother shares the same first and middle name with her mother, Mary Catharine (Clingan) Nelson.  Note that they spell the name Catharine with an ar instead of the usual er in middle.  My grandmother–or Gram as her grandchildren called her–was usually just known as Mary while Mom prefers to be called Catharine.  However, in the family tree, they are both named Mary Catharine.  When I found that this name was also available as a dot com domain, I took it as a sign that I should immediately claim the domain of MaryCatharine.com and do something that I have long promised both my mother and myself that I would do.  I will begin to make her extensive and lovingly composed library of family history available to the modern online world.

Mom began her exploration into family genealogy nearly 40 years ago.  She started with a few scraps of written information plus a collection of anecdotes passed along family grapevine.  Gradually she followed those few threads through libraries, cemeteries, courthouses, and eventually the internet to weave together a very rich and interesting family history.  Today that history exists mostly in dozens of loose leaf notebooks containing thousands of pages of pictures, pedigrees, maps, newspaper clippings, and most importantly the stories of the hundreds of ancestors who have made us who we are today.

Little by little I hope to help Mom take those stories from the ring binders in her basement and bring them out into the world through this blog.  Here they will be accessible not only to the newest generation of our immediate family but to distant relations, friends, and anyone who enjoys a good family story.

— Dave Edlén