02/28/2026
Started what I thought would be a simple family tree project.
Found great-great-grandmother Margaret.
She had fourteen children.
Fourteen.
Each of those children had an average of nine kids.
That's 126 great-great-aunts and uncles I didn't know existed.
Who all had children.
Who had children.
I'm three generations deep and I've filled seventeen notebook pages with names I'll never meet.
My dining room table looks like a detective's murder board.
Red string connecting photos to birth certificates to census records.
Every answer creates four new questions.
Every name leads to three more branches.
My descendants will inherit this project.
We are mathematically outmatched by our own bloodline.
