Are we related?

I jumped on my ibook earlier this evening to blog...near three hours of genealogy info later, here I am! I really need to decide on a family tree or genealogy software to buy or start using. I know at least one aunt and a great aunt who had recorded a good bit of info in the past, though the g. aunt is now deceased and not sure what happened to her notes. I started digging into genealogy several few years ago, but working full-time with kids I just didn't have time to do more than a few searches at 2 am then kick myself when that 5:30 alarm started screaming! I'd love to work on this more regularly as I've found a good bit of info on my father's family, only a couple generations before me put ancestors born in England and Germany and going back as far as I can family born in the first decade of the 1700s. Also a very informative book of my father's family was published in 1947, though I've found many sites online, with incorrect or missing information -such as most of my paternal grandfather's siblings as living when most of them passed many years ago. My mother's father's family is from deep in the hills of West-by-God Virginy (where I visited with Papa last summer for the first time in 25 years!) though they are harder to trace before WV, but I found some going back to England if I have the right line. Mr. FixIt's family is a bit more difficult to find, but some I made it back a few generations, also to England. Also found names misspelled and missing dates regarding his grandparents' info. So much information to correct, hundreds of holes to fill, and I can't imagine the amount of time it will take to tackle this. SO I need to contact my aunt first and see what she has, if she has the g. aunt's notes and if she's willing to share. I hope she has it all on paper and I'll gladly enter it into a family tree program. *Started searching for genealogy program with good reviews this evening. Then I need to pick my grandparents' brains, on both sides, and take LOTS of notes! From what I've read online, I need to have a decent size family file of info to upload and share in order to make corrections to what's wrong out there. Then after I've "shown mine" I can have access to other people's work and information that I don't have so that can be blended together and hopefully fill in many of the holes between mine and other far-flung family members doing the same thing.
I think I can do this. I can get lost for hours searching for this stuff anyway, I might as well be recording and sharing!