The Beginning
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 have had the pleasure of knowing for the last 40+ years. In that respect, she seems ageless to me.
For some reason, I always imagined her as the oldest child in her family ... perhaps because she was older than the other folks in the family that I knew (with the exception of Grandpa), or perhaps because my father was the oldest of her children. Maybe it was because I was the oldest sibling in my own family. I don't know where the idea first planted itself in my head. In truth, she was the fourth of five children, of which she and a sister are still living (2018).
When I first began showing an interest in genealogy, one of the things that caught my attention first, and tugged at my heartstrings, was the discovery that two of her older siblings never lived past infancy. My great-grandparent's oldest child, a boy, was stillborn in 1919. I can only partly fathom what a heartbreak that must have been for my great-grandparents. To the best of my knowledge, the little one was not given a name. The second child, a girl named Kathleen (pictured below), was born in 1920.
At approximately 10 months old, she developed a case of colitis (an inflammation of the bowel), and she died at age 11 months in May of 1921. The third child, a boy, was born in February 1922, so my great-grandmother would have been newly pregnant with him at the time that Kathleen died. It's possible that she didn't even know it at the time. It was into this family that my Grandmother was born.
She grew up, married a gospel preacher, and raised a family of four boys. The oldest of her sons is my father. When I was about 11 years old, she and my Grandfather took me with them on a trip to visit her hometown in Alabama. Although I had not yet caught the genealogy "bug", I remember finding it interesting to meet so many new (to me) relatives that I never even knew existed. I remember getting to meet my great-grandfather's second wife, though I don't remember much about the meeting. I wish now that I had paid more attention ... she was the closest thing I would ever have to a living great-grandparent I could get acquainted with. The others had all passed away by the time I was five years old.
Today, my Grandmother's family is strong and, in the words of the Proverb, they "rise up and call her blessed." She still tells family stories now and then, and now, I hang on every word. From her, I have learned patience, and kindness, and a love of God and family.
My Grandmother Elizabeth (pictured right, above), or "Liz" as she was known by many, was the ninth of ten children born into a central-Texas farming community. It was harder to get much more "deep in the heart of Texas" than Comanche. The little town of about 4000 (on 2000 census) sits just north of dead-center in the State. It's never been a large place. And it can't have always been an easy place to live and raise a family. My only real memories of the place were from a rare trip we made to a family reunion in the early 1980s. It was hot and dry and dusty when we went. It left the impression that it was a hard place. And the stories my Grandmother told me were stories about hard men. Men who did good things, and men that did awful things. The memories of love of family were there, and they were strong, but they were tempered by the reality that life wasn't always what it could have, or perhaps should have, been.
My grandmother married fairly young ... she was only 16. My grandfather was 19. Their family began with two daughters before WWII came along, and my Grandfather went off to fight in battles in the Pacific. When he returned home, there were three more children, with my Mother being the youngest. My Grandfather worked as an electrician, and was known on more than one occasion to come home on a Friday and tell my Grandmother that they had to move to a new city or even state to start a new job on Monday. My mother once told me that she had moved 50 times before she was in the 5th grade. The inability to put down roots seems totally foreign to me, but my Grandmother seems to have made it through. Perhaps she just did what needed to be done. I know that life was not always easy with my Grandfather. He could be quite charming when it suited him, and quite abusive when it didn't. With an older, more mature perspective now, if Grandma were still alive I might ask if he was always that way, or if he changed in the years during the War. In the end, it's of little consequence ... things just were what they were.
My Grandmother (Liz) Nelson died in 2007, just a week after the birth of my second child. I miss her even now ... the sound of her laugh, the joy of a letter from her in my mailbox. From her I learned resilience and grit and a determination to stick things out, even when they are hard.
These women were and are dear to me, and their stories have shaped my love of family history, and my sense of who I am. In so many ways, they are my "start".
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 have had the pleasure of knowing for the last 40+ years. In that respect, she seems ageless to me.
For some reason, I always imagined her as the oldest child in her family ... perhaps because she was older than the other folks in the family that I knew (with the exception of Grandpa), or perhaps because my father was the oldest of her children. Maybe it was because I was the oldest sibling in my own family. I don't know where the idea first planted itself in my head. In truth, she was the fourth of five children, of which she and a sister are still living (2018).
When I first began showing an interest in genealogy, one of the things that caught my attention first, and tugged at my heartstrings, was the discovery that two of her older siblings never lived past infancy. My great-grandparent's oldest child, a boy, was stillborn in 1919. I can only partly fathom what a heartbreak that must have been for my great-grandparents. To the best of my knowledge, the little one was not given a name. The second child, a girl named Kathleen (pictured below), was born in 1920.
At approximately 10 months old, she developed a case of colitis (an inflammation of the bowel), and she died at age 11 months in May of 1921. The third child, a boy, was born in February 1922, so my great-grandmother would have been newly pregnant with him at the time that Kathleen died. It's possible that she didn't even know it at the time. It was into this family that my Grandmother was born.
She grew up, married a gospel preacher, and raised a family of four boys. The oldest of her sons is my father. When I was about 11 years old, she and my Grandfather took me with them on a trip to visit her hometown in Alabama. Although I had not yet caught the genealogy "bug", I remember finding it interesting to meet so many new (to me) relatives that I never even knew existed. I remember getting to meet my great-grandfather's second wife, though I don't remember much about the meeting. I wish now that I had paid more attention ... she was the closest thing I would ever have to a living great-grandparent I could get acquainted with. The others had all passed away by the time I was five years old.
Today, my Grandmother's family is strong and, in the words of the Proverb, they "rise up and call her blessed." She still tells family stories now and then, and now, I hang on every word. From her, I have learned patience, and kindness, and a love of God and family.
My Grandmother Elizabeth (pictured right, above), or "Liz" as she was known by many, was the ninth of ten children born into a central-Texas farming community. It was harder to get much more "deep in the heart of Texas" than Comanche. The little town of about 4000 (on 2000 census) sits just north of dead-center in the State. It's never been a large place. And it can't have always been an easy place to live and raise a family. My only real memories of the place were from a rare trip we made to a family reunion in the early 1980s. It was hot and dry and dusty when we went. It left the impression that it was a hard place. And the stories my Grandmother told me were stories about hard men. Men who did good things, and men that did awful things. The memories of love of family were there, and they were strong, but they were tempered by the reality that life wasn't always what it could have, or perhaps should have, been.
My grandmother married fairly young ... she was only 16. My grandfather was 19. Their family began with two daughters before WWII came along, and my Grandfather went off to fight in battles in the Pacific. When he returned home, there were three more children, with my Mother being the youngest. My Grandfather worked as an electrician, and was known on more than one occasion to come home on a Friday and tell my Grandmother that they had to move to a new city or even state to start a new job on Monday. My mother once told me that she had moved 50 times before she was in the 5th grade. The inability to put down roots seems totally foreign to me, but my Grandmother seems to have made it through. Perhaps she just did what needed to be done. I know that life was not always easy with my Grandfather. He could be quite charming when it suited him, and quite abusive when it didn't. With an older, more mature perspective now, if Grandma were still alive I might ask if he was always that way, or if he changed in the years during the War. In the end, it's of little consequence ... things just were what they were.
My Grandmother (Liz) Nelson died in 2007, just a week after the birth of my second child. I miss her even now ... the sound of her laugh, the joy of a letter from her in my mailbox. From her I learned resilience and grit and a determination to stick things out, even when they are hard.
These women were and are dear to me, and their stories have shaped my love of family history, and my sense of who I am. In so many ways, they are my "start".
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