How far?

What would compel one to search through vast lists of names, begots and begotten, endlessly, dozing as the evening drifts off toward serious night? Does it simply satisfy a quest for recognizable names of history or is it a more profound urge to make connections with others, a meeting place of like minded souls not bound by time? Is this why time becomes irrelevant as the hours pass or as the clicks take one thousand steps back? forward? towards? One thousand clicks and you might have reached a name you've heard - if there are that number of clicks in the first place.

As one late fall evening when I clicked on the name Starret while tracing mother's family connections of 150-200 years ago in New England. MacLanes, Buells, Langdells,... Starret. What kind of name was Starret? It brought images of highrise grey apartment buildings growing up out of the flats approaching the Whitestone Bridge. MacLanes, well, my middle name, inexorably Scots, tracing to the Lochbuie Clan on the isle of Mull. Not much more than that until Malcom and Hector settled in New Hampshire. Mumbles they were younger sons of the laird, John and his wife, Molly Beaton. Whoever they were!(Later, come to find, boys and mother were born at Leer Castle, not much else being available). Buell and Langdell, New Hampshire-ites; likewise Starrets.

The decisive click became a yellow brick road, leading me on and on, and the Starrets didn't seem so mysterious, at least on a certain level. History and time unfolded in stories of battles, alliances, from all the political intrigue of Europe back to places seeming unreal, fantastical, as perhaps they are. I chose early on, however, to follow what I could, to read all I could in a dogged, compulsive desire to form a picture of the possibilities. I have been left, at times, feeling that dry history is enough, but this is a compelling, joyous trip I'm on.

Those courses in European history never taken in college? Guess they couldn't be avoided forever.