Thursday, February 17, 2011

Never say never

I found out through one of my library science classes that DU has a subscription to a fancy ancestry.com database. I'm not sure what you can see without a subscription, but through the school you can see digital images of all the census records through 1930. My maternal grandmother was born that year, so it sparked my interest and I decided it would be fun to look her up. That led to a search for all of my other grandparents.

Searching for them, I found a woman who I was sure I was related to - I just didn't know how. I pulled out a handwritten family tree I'd made in 9th grade and voila - it was my great-great grandmother. THEN I realized that her maiden name listed on my family tree was misspelled. It was like solving a riddle. I immediately dove into more records to see if I could fill more holes in my tree, just for the pure pleasure of solving a puzzle.

When I told Adam what I'd been doing for the last hour, he seemed uninterested, and the I realized why. His dad is an ancestry buff, and on trips to visit extended family he'd take detours to graveyards, dragging along Adam and his mom. "He'd say, 'gotta check some dates,'" Adam told me.

"Don't worry," I assured him. "I'd never do that."

Fast forward to today, when I was talking to my dad. I asked him if he happened to know his great-grandfather's middle name. He said he wasn't sure, but I could just go check myself the next time I'm home for a visit - his whole family is buried in the local cemetery.

2 comments:

Su said...

Didn't grandma pay for all of us to have spaces there too? Or is it just our parents? I know she bought a bunch of spots up....

Loren said...

Oh, I don't know! That would be some good information to have, though...