What is this blog?

Over the past few years, I have developed a nasty addiction. It all started with an unassuming curiosity into my family history, no doubt started by Ancestry.com’s incessant advertising. Thankfully, the Mormons there and at FamilySearch aren’t just all talk. Between the two of them, I feel comfortable in saying that at least half of every existing piece of paper containing genealogical information has been microfilmed and/or digitized. Due to this revelation, I could do what I do best: deep dive into obscure and esoteric topics on the internet. However, this time the topics were wholly unexplored, and what little work had been done was incomplete, at times completely incorrect.

The goal of this blog is to tell some of the interesting stories I’ve discovered on my genealogical journey. My obsession with completeness, combined with a knack for discovering connections, may result in an interesting blog to read, or at the very least, provide Google with an extra site to index.

This blog will also feature posts from family members who have been heavily involved in Masseth genealogical research.

I will also include the occasional posting about technical topics relating to genealogy. I’m unsure exactly which topics those will be at the moment, but they will occasionally come up.

This blog’s goals

This blog will have three types of posts, with one posted ideally every week:

1. Interesting stories I’ve discovered in my research.
2. Detailed documentation on work that I’ve done discover new stories or enrich existing ones, e.g. transcribed documents/letters, independent research, comments on other works, etc.
3. Stories and writings from other family members.

I’ve yet to decide on how exactly I want this blog to look and function. The website will be constantly evolving to suit my needs and make for a better user experience.

Finally, in terms of content, I’ll attempt to connect each post to other ones as needed through hyperlinks, e.g. if I have a post that represents a biography for a person, and I reference that person in a later post, then I’ll link back to that biography in the later post. This may involve updating earlier posts as well.

Who am I?

My name is Matt Masseth. I’m a software engineer who doesn’t know how to prioritize his skill set. Rather than build revolutionary apps, hop on the AI train, or make my riches in the crypto realm, I investigate the lives of people from 150+ years ago, using, and sometimes writing, cutting-edge software to do so.

I’m also a writer and historian, but rather than make any attempt to make my writings interesting, I strive for detail, completeness, and rigor. This often results in overly long, dry pieces that could probably be used reliably as a sleep aid.

If you are an enjoyer of interesting tales from the past, please follow along with this blog, as you may find it more enjoyable than you’d think.