When my son Sammy came home from school and told me he had a class assignment to create a family tree, I couldn’t help but groan. I barely knew the names of my grandparents, much less my great-grandparents. Somewhere in the attic, we had a Bible that was a family heirloom with some of their names written into it, but who knows where that would be?
Much to my surprise, Sammy’s teacher had expected some parents might feel like I did, so she had given Sammy information about how to conduct a People Search online. I was stunned by the amount of information that was available online! (Maybe a little unnerved too, considering I can be paranoid about these things.) But we were able to track down all the information we needed: who married whom, who gave birth to whom and when and where. It was so easy, we got the entire thing done in a couple of hours, and believe me, it would have taken ten times that long to clean the attic.
I was surprised how fascinating people search was. Even after I had tucked Sammy in bed, I started looking up old classmates, ex-boyfriends, even sending emails to some of those second cousins I never knew I had. It was a remarkably rewarding experience knowing that all those people were at my fingertips. So as concerned as I am about my own privacy, maybe being able to be in touch with all these people makes up for it in the long run.