About Me

Hi.  I’m Kerry Scott.  I’m a genealogist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  This is my blog.

I didn’t start out this way, and neither did Clue Wagon.  I used to be a corporate HR executive, and this used to be a blog about how to get a job.  You can read more about that here.

Even as a kid, I was interested in my family history.  When I was a junior in high school, one of my relatives started talking about the old aunts and uncles and grandparents.  I took notes on the only thing that was handy—a paper bag.  I still have it.

A few years later, I moved from Los Angeles to Milwaukee.  An elderly relative wrote and said that my great-great-great-grandparents were buried in West Bend, Wisconsin.  This was news to me, since I’d never been to Wisconsin, and as far as I knew my family hadn’t either.  I went up and found their graves, along with a big fat file about them at the local historical society.  I was hooked.  I spent the next seven years doing research in Wisconsin and Minnesota (and a whole bunch of work at the National Archives and the Library of Congress).  I learned a lot.

Then I got married.  My corporate career took off.  I had a baby, and another.  I spent 10 years focusing on other things.  My research sat in two big black filing cabinets, untouched.  I missed it terribly, but I couldn’t find a way to work on it while getting all of the other stuff done.

When I left HR after my second child was born to be a stay-at-home mom and figure out what my next move would be, I thought about becoming a professional genealogist.  It took a year and a half to work up the courage to commit to actually doing it.  I finally did.  It feels great.

So now I’m working through my old research, enrolling in refresher courses, and generally spending all of my non-diaper-changing time pursuing this goal.  It’s a huge challenge, but I’m having a fantastic time.  Spending my time with dead people is awesome.  They never send dumb chain emails or make you sit through three-hour meetings in windowless conference rooms.  They don’t sexually harass each other, and you never have to fire them and then help them clean out their desks.  Dead people rock.

If you have a question, or you like the blog, or you hate the blog, or you just want to say hello, you can email me here.  My response time will depend on whether I can get my kids to nap simultaneously, so I apologize in advance for being slow.  It’s not you, it’s me.  If you prefer me in 140-character increments, and want genealogy clues PLUS random snark and insight into what the letter and number of the day are on Sesame Street, you can follow me on Twitter.  If you want to have Clue Wagon posts delivered to you, you can subscribe for free via email, via RSS, or on Facebook.

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