My foray into family history began at the ripe old age of about seven. I’d query my mother persistently about our ancestry, hoping that the more I’d ask, the more information I’d get. She’d repeatedly tell me the same thing: I was English, Irish, Welsh, German and Norwegian (all correct) and Native American (not correct). This obviously didn’t suffice to satisfy my curiosity, so when I became old enough to drive, I’d go to the library and search through old issues of the New England Historic and Genealogical Register as well as other old books. One thing led to another, and before you knew it, I was ordering birth and death certificates, writing to historical societies, interviewing long-forgotten relatives, and going on research trips to Maine, Massachusetts and Minnesota, the native states of my ancestors.