Too much time, too much to do...

Took me 7 months but I finally remembered to write in my blog again, even though I was supposed to be writing something interesting each week.
So it's now November and even though I haven't been working or able to find work in this day and age called the recession, I've had a lot to do.
Apart from job searching which takes up a huge amount of time and effort, I have discovered a few new obsessive pastimes, the big one being genealogy.
My sister Mel started it all when she told me that she had bought a book to record the family history. Turns out it was the same book I had bought from a second hand shop a couple of years earlier but had never got around to filling in. Anyway this got us onto wondering who great grandparents were and the obsession stemmed from there...
I love researching and doing detective work. Once you are onto a hot clue its so exciting and you keep digging to find more! You have to be able to think and rethink clues to fit the pieces of the puzzle together and know where to look for tip-offs.
One thing I've learnt is that there are a lot of other obsessives out there (who have obviously finished their family research) who love to help others. I now have others here and overseas who are no way related to me that are emailing me with big chunks of information on my ancestors! It's amazing that they're taking their time to do it and a lot of the time it's unexpected and I'll just get an email saying bla bla bla...etc etc etc...
Some members of the family are hard to find much on and have created dead-ends (for now anyway!) and some of them are easily found...the longest chain I've made so far is 2 lines of great,great,great,great,great grandparents! Both stem from my Dads mothers side. So thats dating back to the 1700's. But it's too fun not to stop there!