Susan Davis Faulker came up from the Tri-Cities Genealogical Society to be our May, 2015, meeting program speaker and her story captivated and energized the entire room.
Susan's presentation explained and demonstrated the pitfalls of "Chasing Mirage Leaves" when doing genealogy.
She began by stating her problem: Identify Fred Kuhn, born 1856 in Missouri.
During a research trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, she began to work on this problem and immediatly answers began to fall into place. Ancestry's wavy leaves provided the starting clue.
She was elated! She was involved! "This was my family," she said, "And I'm learning about them and their lives from digging into the docments of their lives. It was exhilerating."
After several days and too many hours of precious Salt Lake time, she followed the Mirage-Leaf Trail ( or the Bunny Trail she also defined it) clear to 1877............ where she found that the 19 year old Fred Kuhn she'd been chasing had died. Not the ancestor after all. Major deflation.
After relating that story, Susan explained the sound principles of how to "Build Your Family Tree with Strong Roots."
Susan ended the afternoon with this homile: "Bunny trails are all over the place and we follow them all too willingly and get ourselves soon and easily off course."
Right on, Susan! Thanks for sharing a great teaching example of just this very thing.
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