Climbing Our Family Tree

The assignment for week 3 said "Longetivity". Like many of the writing prompts in this series, it can be interpreted in a number of ways. Was it the longest marriage? The longest one family lived in one area? The oldest person in the family tree? Could be any or all of these things. Truth is, though, the first thing I thought of when I saw the word was a person in my husband's family tree. Records of his life, particularly his early life, are sketchy. That's mostly because of the time period when he was born.The truth is, his life is still something of a mystery and a puzzle, despite me trying to revisit my research on occasion and learn more. I "met" him in the most ordinary way, at least for a genealogist. I was tracing my husband's family tree, and since it was in the years before children (B.C. - ha!) we had the luxury of running off to far flung areas to track down records or forgotten cemeteries in search of long ago relatives. We were traveling ...

The assignment for week two said "Favorite Photo", and although I have lots of family photos that I treasure for their subjects, for their age, or for their scarcity, one photo immediately popped into my head. A photo that has always represented the treasured relationship between grandparent and grandchild for me. The woman in the photo is my great-great grandmother, Florence Minnie (Lawson) Zahnd. The child in the photo is my own grandmother, Loyce. Based on my grandmother's apparent age, I'm guessing the photo was taken about 1928 or 1929. The affection between these two is easily seen, and it reminds me a lot of my relationship with my Grandma (Loyce) Rogers. Perhaps that is the reason that learning more about Minnie has always interested me. For a long time, though, her life was a bit of a puzzle. My grandmother's has few memories of her. Apparently when one of Minnie's sons, Walter, lost his first wife in 1928, he brought his house full of children...

So the 52-ancestor challenge for week 1 simply said "Start". In genealogy, start could mean a lot of things. If you look at it from here back, start would be me. If start referred to the farthest ancestor I've traced back to, it would probably be a fellow back in Ireland back in the late 1600s. Instead, I thought I would start where my genealogical search started. With two remarkable women. These are my Grandmothers. And the two ladies who were probably most responsible for getting me started in genealogy. They often told stories, as Grandmothers do, and somewhere along the line I went from the childhood, "Oh, that's nice." response to a more grown-up "Please tell me more!" My Grandmother Loyce (on the left) was born in northern Alabama on March 10th. I could tell you the year, but that's really not important. She is still with us, thankfully, and though she moves a little slower because of her age, she is still the same lovely lady I...

I came across an old idea while wandering through memories on Facebook the other day. It was a writing challenge called " 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks ", and was put together by Certified Genealogist Amy Johnson Crow. Each week, participants are given a broad theme to use as a writing prompt for sharing their family history research with others. On week, it might be a favorite photo. Another week, it might be a strong woman. The main thing is to get your information out there to the folks that will be most interested in hearing about it. Genealogy is one of those things ... you start out thinking, "Oh, I'm just trying to find *this* answer." Pretty soon, it grows. And grows. And before long people are looking at you sideways, because you're talking about spending all of your spare time in cemeteries, or surrounded by piles of dusty books. And despite it all, you love it, because you know that somewhere out there is that one elusive piece of information that wi...