My Aunt "Martha" sent me a book she wrote about her experiences growing up. I say "book" because it is quite lengthy, including photos, poems she's written over the years and even copies of hand written letters to her from various relatives. However, it is not a "book" in the sense that I do not believe she is looking to actually get it published and distributed. She made several copies, had them bound and everything, to share with her sisters and their children. But that was her only intent, I believe.
She sent one to my mother but at Thanksgiving we all agreed that unless she sent me my own copy I'd probably never get a chance to read it. (All my other cousins read their mom's copy). She recently sent it to me and I read it all in one night. (which might account for my status updates on FB pertaining to the fact that I'm tired!! I haven't gotten much sleep this week.)
It is truly a fabulous account of her childhood!! My grandma and grandpa had 5 girls. "Martha" was the third born of the five. In order from oldest to youngest: Patsy, Maxine, "Martha", My mom, and "Newlywed". (Martha and Newlywed were the two that visited back in October.)
AM warned me that there wasn't much about my mom in the book because she and NW were born later. So the memories are mostly of her and her two older sisters. However I found it quite captivating!! They grew up in rural WV, off the "hard road". (= their house was on a dirt road, not far off the paved road) She talks of all the neighbors, their children, her playmates, grandparents, etc... It's amazing how much she remembers!!!
As I was reading it I realized that I needed a paper and pencil because I was interested in trying to outline a family tree. (Just for the fact I was getting confused. She mentions so many relations that I couldn't keep track of who was part of our family,and in what order, and other family trees of neighbors she was reciting.)
That got me to remember!! A few years ago I started an account on ancestry.com. So I pulled out the book and went to my account to add information or verify info I already had in there. It's amazing!! I find this so interesting! As most of you know, my family is essentially all from WV and OH. So far I've gone back to the mid - late 1700's on my dad's side. I'm in the 1800's on my mom's side. And I still have more "hints" to explore.
It's not uncommon, now and when I first started the account, to call my dad in the middle of the day and ask him questions about his side of the family to make sure I'm adding the correct relatives. If you've never explored it before I highly recommend it!
I'm thinking that my aunt's book provides about as much info as I'm going to be able to get off that side of the family. But that's ok because I know that info is accurate and I can go from there. My dad said he had a family bible he was going to send me so I can compare the info I found on the site to the "actual" record. Also, my dad's side of the family publishes a book (I don't know how often. I'd guess the most recent one we have is 20 years old) on their genealogy. It goes back to Ireland to the 800's!!! He's going to send me that too.
Working on your genealogy is quite a puzzle!! I find it fascinating! I'm not exactly sure why, but I've had a lot more interest in my past relatives of late. Plus I think that starting to capture the info now will make it easier to future generations. Back in the day people didn't move around too much. That's one reason it's so easy for me to find as much info as I have. But of course nowadays that's not the case - and with it the information gets lost.
Now I'm very aware of some "interesting" names in my family. But I have uncovered many more:
- Wyomia Tennessee (that's my grandma)
- Chauncey
- Bertha
- Granville
- Beulah
- Zilpha
- Luverna
- Lecretia "Creech"
- Dela
- Mavis
- Melva
- Enoch
- Philander
I mean, there are plenty of Rebecca's, Susannah's, Mary's, Henry's, William's and all. But my eye really caught the ones above. "Philander"??? Did his parents assume that he would eventually become a philanderer??? I didn't realize "Enoch" was even a biblical name until I looked it up! (I think it sounds like eunuch....)
So there are MANY interesting things to find on that site!!
NOTE: I believe a lot of the information on ancestry.com comes from the Mormon records, yearly census records, draft cards from WWI and WWII. There are some marriage certificates also. But then again, I would assume that all the info is actually held in the Mormon records....
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