I picked up a copy of Reunion 9 with some of my Christmas cash - which means that finally (FINALLY) I'll be able to make some sense and have a time line of all of the family names, dates, stories, etc that I've been absorbing for as long as I can remember. Luckily, my mother was long elected as the family archivist so she's got a nice little stash of photos and notes and important paraphernalia (but not the family bible, that is in an archival box under the bed in my Grandfather's guest room - along with P-Boo's scrapbooks from her Graduate Studies in the early 20s.) There are meticulous notes on some of the photos and coupled with the powers of the interweb I've been able to scrounge up interesting little tidbits - like contact information for the church my great-grandfather helped found in 1921 in Rock Hill, S.C. And since googlemaps is so thorough now I can even see the sites of the homes my ancestors (so odd to use that word, yet so appropriate) lived in.
I've got some odd names up in the branches of the tree - my great-great-great-great-great (?) Grandmother liked to give her girls multiple names: Katherine Margaret Rosalie and Hermine Helene Julianna Antoinette. But it was the 1860s and neither of them survived more than a few months. No cause of death that I've found. Steve speculates poverty, but actually the family fortune hadn't been squandered, yet. I like knowing all of these little tidbits. I like knowing where we came from. Mostly I've just done my Maternal Grandfather's side. My Maternal Grandmother's side goes back pre-revolution (this will all be used to get me in the DAR, eventually) and that makes me tired just thinking about it.
I've got an ulterior motive in all of this, too. Well...maybe it's a side-motive? It's not the primary objective, but it's in the top 5 for sure: figure out what the hell is going on in my husband's family. There's a branch very close to his (1st cousins) which is filled with people we can't keep straight. So I'll start up a file for that family here in the near future and get that sorted so that my nephew will know who he's talking to at the large family gatherings. Clearly I've got time if that's my reasoning for embarking on that little project.
Who knows - maybe in the process of all of this I'll uncover something exciting. Well, more exciting than my great-great-great-grandmother being a double agent in the civil war, that is ;-)
Ok...back to scanning and archiving...
Will leave you with the song I've had stuck in my head all day:
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FYI, our Dad's side isn't as easy as it seems. Most of the records in Poland got burned when the communists took over, so we were never able to trace back very far. Even though it is complicated, you'll actually be able to find more about Mom's side, going all the way back to the immigration of our German ancestors. I'd love to find out more. Supposedly Mom and I qualify to join the DAR.
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