Launching a practice as a professional genealogist specializing in genetic genealogy might seem to be a big departure from other work that I’ve done. People have asked me why I’m launching Borgerson Research. Here are three reasons:
The first reason feels a bit selfish: I am insatiably curious. Making my living by helping people find their stories, always getting to learn more about history and science along the way, is just about the best life that I can imagine.
The second reason I’m doing this is because I think I can really help people solve their mysteries. Though my earlier work has been in other fields (including science, software, and higher education), there have been some common threads through all of my roles: I’m good at making sense of huge amounts of information, including seeing the connections between pieces that seem widely separated. I’ve also got a knack for clearly communicating complex things, especially to folks who are non-specialists.
The third and most important reason I’m doing this is because I think this is an opportunity for me to contribute to something the world needs right now. So many of the systems that we live in seem to be teetering on the edge of massive disruption. I hope that good changes may lie ahead of us, and I fear that some of the changes may be really hard. I don’t think any of the answers are simple. My intention is to help people understand the complexity of how we got here, and the ways in which both our pasts and our futures are intertwined. Every decision that each of us makes impacts other people, and I think that the more clearly we understand those impacts, the better choices we can make.
I’m on a journey to understand more about how I’ve ended up where I am today. I’d like to help other people on their own versions of that journey. I invite you to join me.