My Family Tree

This last week my husband and I received an incredible blessing, a small miracle.  After waiting almost eight years we have been given the genealogy to my husband's paternal side.  Having access to this information was something we had pretty much given up hope for. 
The day after the packet of treasured information came in the mail I sat down to look through it.  The moment I took the papers in my hand I was overcome with emotion and a great sense of urgency to prepare this information and allow these ancestors to receive their long awaited ordnances.  I could feel a tingling sensation in my fingers as I turned each page.  All my life I've heard peoples' stories of doing genealogy for their family and I never quite understood the feelings they described.  I never felt the sense of importance of genealogy.  While going through these papers, though, I quickly learned why the people who have done genealogy work have such a passion for it.  The excitement I feel and the collective sense of urgency from somewhere beyond me is something I am unable to ignore.
As of yesterday I have made it half way through the packet of information and I've managed to create a very extensive family tree.  However, there are holes here and there where information has been lost.  . One name, or rather, a lack of name stood out to me.  In all the information that my husband's family had collected there was one woman, a second wife, where the only information was for her children, there was no information about the woman at all.  No name, nor birth date, no death date.  Nothing.  I immediately singled her out as one of my priorities.  Over the course of two hundred years this woman's name was forgotten, disappearing into history.  The idea that a prominent figure of this family had disappeared broke my heart and I committed to find out who she was.  It took some digging, but thanks to the amazing records and resources of the church I have found her. I don't think I could describe the feeling when I found her.  She became real again.  Even thinking about it gives me such a high and renews my excitement.  I'm hoping that this sensation will help pull me through some of the difficulties I may face in the process of completing this genealogical work. 
I have so much to learn and yet in spite of the fact that this is such an overwhelming task I don't feel overwhelmed at all.  I realize that this is only the beginning, but my testimony of family history and genealogy work has blossomed overnight, and is becoming something I never knew I had inside me.



Have any of you done genealogy work?  Have any tips for a newbie?