About Bob Baird

I've been active in genealogy, on and off, for nearly 40 years. I became seriously interested while living in Salt Lake City in the 1970s, where I got started with an accreditation program offered at the LDS Genealogical Society. Over the course of a career with a large corporation, I lived in a variety of places that offered excellent research facilities. Since I retired in Raleigh, NC a few years ago, I've been able to devote more time to this most rewarding and frustrating of hobbies.

My genealogical interests are fairly broad. One of my early goals was to identify all my ancestors who were alive in 1776. As a result I became interested in a large number of surnames and family lines. Over the years, I've collected several file drawers of raw material. Most of this is my own research, but I have also been fortunate enough to have been helped by many other researchers over the years. It makes sense to share this with others.

I've chosen to share most of this information in the form of narratives, much like the typical genealogy book. I tend to organize my raw material in this way for my own use, since it allows me to put the facts into perspective and to provide my own interpretations and theories. I am not a fan of genealogy software, and don't use any myself. In my view, genealogy software is great for organizing people into family groups, but not appropriate for explaining theories or interpreting facts. It's also awkward for dealing with uncertain relationships, unrelated individuals, and some other unavoidable aspects of organizing and interpreting genealogical records. To me, the fun in genealogy is not in "name collecting", but in doing the research and wringing as much information as possible out of the facts.

One result is that I tend to get interested in families that aren't particularly important in my lineage. Whenever I realize that a family has been ignored in print (or its lineages butchered) I can't resist researching them. There are several "mini-books" on this site that resulted from those interests.

I hope to eventually put most of my material on this site. However, this might be a slow process. Please feel free to contact me if you see something you'd like to know more about, or if you have a suggestion for what to add next.

I have also included some extra files on a variety of colonial genealogy topics. I have a particular interest in colonial laws and customs, and have tried to share some of that knowledge.

Even if some of my files appear to be complete, don't assume that I know it all. We all learn quickly that there is plenty we don't know.Part of the fun of genealogy is that each new fact we learn tends to create another area of research. Please help me improve the quality of the site by contributing your own information, suggestions, and comments