Greetings, Friends!

I read a tip recently that having a blog might be a good way to advance genealogical research. It is my hope that this blog might either A) help me organize my thoughts and determine where the gaps are or B) put me in touch with a knowledgeable reader.

At present I am obsessed with Woolsey Light b. 1762 in New York. No one on earth, it seems, has found out who his parents were.  Woolsey was the grandfather of Civil War Major Harvey Everett Light, who we affectionally refer to as Major Harvey. Major Harvey was my great great great grandfather and possibly my favorite ancestor:
http://sites.google.com/site/lightfamilyhistory/

Major Harvey was a heck of an entrepreneur and a patriot. I had the privilege of visiting his grave site in Pittsford, NY last summer with historian Vicki Profitt, author of the Illuminated History blog.

It only strengthened my determination to push farther back in time and investigate old family tales of German and Welsh ancestry on the Light side. Welsh is new information from my mother last month, she said her father Sid Light spoke of it. Well this is fascinating because the story Major Harvey recounts involves 3 brothers arriving from Germany in Manchester, England (near Wales) before coming to America. One stayed, the other 2 went on to Baltimore.

We're pretty much stuck at Woolsey, however. No one's entirely sure where he was born or who his parents were. Many records that would have shed light either were not kept or were destroyed by fire. I am aware of a prominent researcher on the Lights by the name of Betty M. Light Behr. For a number of years she edited and published a newsletter called Search-Light where a good deal of information about my branch of the Lights is to be found. In fact, Betty also descends from Woolsey. I was able to view most of her work in the newsletter, until she handed over editorship to Christopher Light of Indiana, and sadly it did not reveal too much more than I already knew about Woolsey. I reached out to Betty last month, still living in Carmel, NY, thinking if anyone was able to solve the mystery after all these years it'd be her. Sadly she has had no better luck, and given her close proximity to where our ancestors lived and access to those records, it would seem my prospects aren't so good being I'm in Michigan.

Still, I am determined. My current strategy is to learn as much as possible about the types of records that exist, watching webinars, reading wikis, etc. The LDS site familysearch.org has a wealth of information! I now have a really good understanding about Revolutionary War records, but sadly my Woolsey is not well-documented. There's only one place that may still have information, and I doubt I'll be in the National Archives any time soon. But there is still hope! I may yet gain access to old newspapers or church records that could reveal additional information about Woolsey's birth and parents.  Next time I'll present the legends we know from Major Harvey, and compare with the factual data uncovered thus far.