Profile

In my professional career, I’ve been running Competitive Intelligence and Strategy Departments at large corporations for over 20 years.  I‘ve always prided myself on being able to uncover just about any piece of information.  That was, however, before I started doing genealogical research... 

For me, I’d done research for my entire professional career, but the research that I needed to undertake on my ancestors and their life histories was a whole different ballgame – and I wasn’t prepared. 
 
I started doing genealogical research back in 2008 and really only wanted to answer two simple questions (more on that in the initial blog post).  And as I remember it, that first year was a rough one.  In fact, I wanted to quit several times.  However, when I reached my lowest moments I always seemed to have someone provide encouragement and advice that pulled me through the rough stretch.  When looking back, I remember that each time I had a low moment – a big discovery was right around the corner. 

Because I never read any genealogy books, took any formal classes or attended any genealogy conferences, my research strategy could at worst be described as haphazard and at best, accidental.  Those first few years, I just stumbled into so many lucky breaks.  Even now, I rarely have formal research plans – although I do maintain an extensive to-do list that I work from. 

Just this past year when making a family visit, a relative suggested that I should’ve written up the process of how I uncovered so much information.  He inquired, “wouldn’t someone (or anyone) find that interesting?”  Now I haven’t maintained a diary or anything like that, but since 2008, I have taken excellent notes on all my findings (and pitfalls) as well as maintaining a research log.  So with those records as a base, I’ve finally decided it’s time to share some of what I’ve stumbled into. 

As you can probably guess, what this blog won’t talk about it is a formal research process or methodology.  In fact, we’ll probably be “all over the place.”  I will pull no punches.  If I visit an operation and get treated poorly, I’ll talk about it.  We’ll have a conversation about my failures – in this research (much like baseball), a 30% success rate is pretty good.  I’ll also write about the places that have their act together – much like the bad organizations you deal with in your research, the good ones need to be called out as well.   I’ll do my best to post on a weekly basis (or as the mood hits) and I’ll discuss some of the new findings (or lack thereof) that I run into.  I will not reference people who are still living (unless they are celebrities in the field of genealogy).  Typically, if I need to reference a living person, I will simply use initials.

Oh, and finally, why did I choose to name this blog “No Hoof Left Behind?”    Well, there’s a good story behind that.  My family surname that I’ve mostly focused my research on is Breeding.    As part of our family history book, we’ve written extensive biographies of all of my Grandpa Lyle Breeding’s 21 Breeding cousins.  One cousin, named Opal Breeding, had written an autobiography entitled “On the Battlefield for the Lord.”  It’s a wonderful book that I’ve read probably ten times over and it provided some excellent material for what our family life was like in the 1920’s and 1930’s.  In her book, she also wrote about her father telling her husband, Edward Luelf, to scout out the land he was moving to before re-locating Opal and their young daughter.   But Opal's husband said like Moses, “we are not leaving a hoof behind.”  To me, family history is a lot like that.  Borrowing from the concept of cluster genealogy, when you think of a family unit as not just parents and siblings, but instead, cousins and aunts and uncles, that’s when you reap the true rewards of this journey.  In short, when researching your family history, "no hoof should be left behind."

Thank you for visiting my blog.  If you see your ancestors on this blog, or if you have questions and comments, please feel free to contact me as I am always happy to share information.

B. Breeding