My research took an upexpected turn yesterday!  A couple of weeks ago, I went to a lineage workshop my local genealogical society was putting on at the library.  After the workshop, many of us were scouring the books and I happened to find one on one of my particular lines, Whisenants Through the Ages. I have emailed the author of the book before and have looked at his website, but didn't realize my library had a copy of his book!  I didn't have much time to really look through it until yesterday.  I got off work early, so decided I would go to the library and do some research before picking up the kids.  I found some useful information on my Whisenants and wrote it all down to try to look up later on Ancestry. 

When I got home, I looked online and found new census records for my great great great grandfather, John B. Whisnant.  He was living in 1930 with his daughter, Ella, and son-in-law, Joseph T. Chambers!  Chambers?!  That's my husband's last name!  After all the jokes from my sister-in-law that I married my cousin (no Chambers in my direct line though!), I did begin to wonder if Joseph Chambers was related to my husband's line of Chambers!  So far, I have not found any indication as no one on Ancestry had even located his parents' names and I found his death certificate to be the son of "Chambers" and "Rebecca" with no maiden name listed.  His tombstone states he fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy in Company C, 1st Regiment North Carolina Infantry.  So, I googled it and found a diary from a Private in his same Regiment.  It was very interesting to read, somewhat sad and shocking as well.  I did not know deserters were whipped and even shot to death. 

I also found out this regiment fought at Gettysburg.  The NC soldier wrote of capturing Union soldiers as prisoners of war and that some of them were German and could only speak in German.  Another ancestor of mine, my great great great grandfather, Charles Pabst, fought at Gettysburg for the Union.  He was of German descent and even came to the US in 1862 and that's when he entered the Army in New York in an all German Battallion.  So to read about this battle from this viewpoint made it totally real for me.  I am not sure if my German ancestor was one of the NC soldier's regiment's POW as I am not able to locate his service records yet.  It was a very real and surreal moment from reading about the battle at Gettysburg though. 

Anyone ever been to a Genealogy Lock-In at their local library or genealogy society?  I haven't, but there is one coming up in a couple of weeks that I am thinking about going to.  I'm trying to think of all the things I can look up, or need to look up, while I am there.  I figure obituaries will be the first thing I look up.  Can anyone think of anything else?  Like I said, I've never been to one and really haven't ever done any research at the library, so I really don't know what to expect or know what types of records are available.  I'm sooo excited though!  I think it will be a lot of fun!