I recently read Barbara Kingsolver's book, Flight Behavior. This best-selling author entertains while she educates about Appalachian Mountain family cultures and environmental issues.
Back before the Civil War, my Scots ancestors settled in Tennessee, so her stories gave me some insight into their possible lifestyle. Knowing where and when my ancestors lived, inspires me to read historical novels, history, and geography books.
I know quite a bit about my ancestors, thanks to my mother, whose hobby was genealogy. She investigated family history by writing letters and reading microfiche records. That was the old way. She would have loved to have had access to all the records now available from internet sites, like Ancestry.com.
My cousin added to our family history story, too. His journey involved a long road trip around America in his RV, visiting old cemeteries. You can learn a lot about family members from the headstones.
My favorite thing about my mother's genealogy work were the stories. For instance, great great great great great grandpa McMahon was slashed across his mouth with a sword during the Revolutionary War. Later, while visiting his people in Ireland, he was forced on board as crew for a ship where he was closely guarded and unable to escape for many years. When he was finally able to get away, he returned home to find his wife had remarried and died and his children had grown and they didn't know him. His daughter only accepted his story because of his terrible scar.
Mom inspired me to interview my husband's grandmother and write a summary of his family history. It was Nana who gave me the lowdown on my husband's family, including many names, places, occupations, and those little tidbits that make the story special.
I unintentionally jumped back into family history investigation after moving to Iowa. ( I lived there for one year). When I tired of driving on I-80 with all the trucks, I finished the trip on a older highway. I was surprised to recognize two town names from Nana's stories, Albia and Chariton.
Many months later I made a special trip back to Albia's genealogy library and found a binder of information on his Chidester family, who had twelve children. I was luckily directed to tiny Bethel cemetery in the middle of a farm. I wouldn't have found it by myself. Mostly inhabited by the last remains of Chidesters, It used to be next to a church that burned down, maybe by the Chidester boys' fireworks. They had loads of information on the family that stayed in Iowa and I had loads of information on the people who left. When you connect with other family historians, it can open up a huge amount of information and it's fun. I was able to send them my information to fill in their story.
Then I went to Chariton Library where I found that their genealogy society had organized and saved newspaper articles on microfiche. Those old newspapers were full of gossipy tidbits that add to the story. Like the oldest Sullivan girl, a spinster named Bridget, who once accidentally took arsenic and was saved by the local doc. I named one of my cats after her. I visited the Chariton Catholic cemetery where I found William Sullivan's grave, the tallest monument in the cemetery. He was a railroad boss. I had mistakenly thought that the Sullivan name would be too common to track them down, but he was a well known figure in this small town.
Thinking that it would be fun to learn more about my own family and knowing that my great grandmother was buried somewhere in Iowa, I retrieved the family history binder made by Mom. From there, I was able to find and visit cousins. I hoped to solve the mystery of what happened to my paternal great-grandmother who was left behind when my great-grandfather moved to Seattle. My clues didn't lead to answers, but my guess is that she had dementia. I didn't find her grave, but her youngest daughter had a big tombstone so my guess is that she was buried nearby and just didn't have her grave marked.
I also stopped at the library in Nebraska City and their genealogy society had newspaper articles on microfiche. I found out more of the story of my Irish ancestors. Great-grandpa Black came directly from Ireland to Nebraska, where his brother had a job supervising railroad bridge building. This Irish family wasn't poor. The family land had been in the Republic of Ireland, County Cavan, on the border of northern Ireland. As Protestants in a Catholic country they were targeted. Family lore was that his barn was burned and he was horsewhipped. Selling the land and heading to America seemed like a better deal.
Because of the stories about my family, I can visualize our part in the historical novels and history of those times. I have a glimpse of what happened to bring me to where I am today.
So, if you have a chance to visit family this summer, you may want to interview Great Aunt Susie and get those names and stories written down. It can open up a whole new picture of your family and maybe lead you to an interesting hobby where you may connect with lots of other people. Or this may be an excuse to contact those far flung older relatives and gather the stories before they are lost.
Write down everything you know and learn and from there, you may find lots of help through local genealogy societies and library records and the internet.
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