Here is one more reason the Internet is great. About 15 minutes ago my mom sent me this story via my Uncle, that an author, John Taibi, had come across on a fishing trip in Erieville, NY..

The story begins in the late 1920s with a fellow by the name of William Smalenbach. He was a resident of New York City who, his doctor had determined, was suffering from tuberculosis. The physician advised him that he should move to the clear and clean air of upstate New York to aid in his recovery. So, Mr. Smalenbach purchased a spot of land high in the hills overlooking the Basher Kill valley where lie the communities of Summitville and Wurtsboro.

So by now you are probably wondering what the significance of this story is, well William Smalenbach is my Great Grandfather, all of those people in the story are cousins of some sort, and the house in the picture is the place where my Grandpa and Grandma met. (I think its safe to assume this is also where I got my masterful skills of a rod and reel)!

I think it is amazing that my Uncle was able to find information about his grandfather online! The fact that someone took the time to type up this story and publish to the web simply amazes me. You hear about all those stories your parents or grandparents tell you that have been passed down from generation to generation but there are things out there like this story that I would have never heard about but yet am lucky enough to now know. It’s another reason for everyone to start bloggin’!

As I get older I realize I’m more like my mom all the time (and not b/c we are both stubborn and always right ) but because she is the one who is most intrigued by our family history and it has probably rubbed off on me. She’s always been the family glue and carries all of the old stories and pictures about our family lineage. The task is going to be documenting it all, getting the information out of her head, shoe boxes, photo albums and in some sort of organized fashion. I’m going to try to put it on the web while she puts them in a book, so maybe a Roberts or Smalenbach generation in years to come will be able to learn their family history. Some people are not interested in this sort of thing but to me there is nothing more interesting. Like the old saying goes “you have to know where you are from to know where you are going. “