Caution: genealogy can be addicting

Have any of you played around with the new family search website put out by the church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)? The new site can only be accessed by members. It is awesome. I have always liked genealogy and family history (the stories and such). One of my first merit badges I earned was for genealogy. My mom used to do a lot of genealogy work, so a lot of our family's research has been done. Now the hard work has to be done to advance the lines.

When I really got into doing genealogy and temple work about 5 years ago, I remember downloading gedcom files and importing them into PAF and linking them and sorting duplicates and entering names. It was so tedious and you had to go through so many steps. In fact, I was so frustrated by it that I filled out a 12 generation chart by hand so I could visualize it better. It was also a hassle to coordinate with family who had the cards to take to the temple and who was going to do the work and when (some cards sat for years before the work was done).

I always thought - with what we can do with computers, why can't this be in one spot? I'm glad someone else had those same thoughts and did something about it. It's a lot easier now and everything is in one place. Of course, once you get to the end of the line, you still have to do work to find names and such, but man, this new tool has made life so much easier.