How did I get started in genealogy?

I'm love listening to genealogy podcosts, helps my hour car ride to work seem shorter, so I'll start this blog the way Kory Meyerink starts his interviews, "How did you get started in genealogy?"

During the Christmas shopping season last year I started looking for my significant other's, Brenden, family crest. With a surname of Joyce, I thought it would be pretty easy. Then, I discovered there were multiple crests depending on what country and town his family originated. I started to research his family, hoping to complete my search in a month or two, trying to determine where his family originated. (All while trying to keep my search a secret from Brenden, hard to get information from his family members without him finding out...)

Well, as you probably guessed, or know from experience, the search turned into a much larger genealogy project, as I expanded my search to my family. I purchased an ancestry.com subscription for myself for Christmas, and I got Brenden involved in the search. Now we are both addicted to genealogy and finding our roots.

We still haven't been able to prove what part of the world his family originated. We're pretty certain his family was from Ireland, but records of the Joyce family have also been found in England and Scotland. We were able to trace his line of Joyce's back to the early 1700's in the United States, in Virginia and South Carolina, connected with some long lost relatives, found published genealogies and pictures about his family, census records, graves, and wills, but from there the search has gone cold. We'll keep at it, along with the rest of our family lines. Once you start, you can't stop. I am addicted and loving every minute of it.