User:Tmacentee

I have great respect for Wikipedia especially the underlying MediaWiki engine which runs Wikipedia. I may not always take the correct approach to adding an article but I am thankful for the guidance and comments from more experienced users. I just tend to get a bit overzealous in my desire to see genea-blogging accepted as a legitimate component of the genealogy and family history community.

Genealogy
I have been tracing my family history since 1995 when I was handed an original copy of The Genealogy of David Putman and His Descendants. Only 100 copies were privately printed in 1916 and this book has become one of the sources for research of the Putman family line back to Johannes Putman who arrived in Albany, New York in 1661.

Over the past 13 years I have been able to expand my research to include my Austin and McEntee/MacEntee lines. Most of my current family live in the mid-Hudson Valley region of New York state when many of my ancestors settled in the late 1600s.

Technology
I have been employed in the information technology field for almost 20 years, specializing in technology and large global law firms. I currently work out of my home in Chicago as an Applications Analyst for Heller Ehrman LLP in San Francisco.

Blogging
For the past 18 months, I have been blogging about my family history through my blog Destination: Austin Family and have made attempts to network with and create a community of like-minded genea-bloggers.

Genea-bloggers tend to stand out from the rest of the genealogy community in that we enthusiastically embrace and even seek out new technologies as a means of supplementing and improving our genealogy research efforts. While genealogy of the late 19th century involved writing letters to relatives to ask research questions, or even writing to a local post master asking, "please send me the names and addresses of all (surname)'s in your town . .", and genealogy of the 20th century involved library research, visiting Family History Centers or joining a local genealogy society, genealogy of the 21st century will involve not just performing research from the comfort of one's own internet connection, but via social networking with other genealogists.