Tuesday, September 26, 2017

From These Roots


I write this blog to leave a family history for my children, their children, and on down the line. They are the leaves on my tree.

I include stories about family, tell about different family members, and sometimes I simply put down my own thoughts.

There is an old Irish saying that says, "Every branch blossoms according to the root from which it is sprung". It simply means you are who you come from.

I want my offspring to know who they are and who they came from. It helps them get an idea of where they may be going. Besides it is fun to look back at the laughter, tears, and scallywags that belong to our family.

Over the years I have worked off and on to make a family tree. It is such hard work. Trying to find records is difficult. I know quite a bit until we get past grandparents and great-grandparents.

I did not know my paternal grandfather. He died before I was born. I do not remember even seeing a picture of him.

My paternal grandmother talked about being the first child born in the United States after her family arrived from Denmark. She had one sister that I knew a tiny bit. She had brothers who lived in the same town but I did not know them.

My maternal grandfather had several brothers and sisters but I only knew one brother. Others had died or lived out of state.

My maternal grandmother had a sister who lived near to all of us. She was married but did not have children.

Grandma's father was still alive though. He was one of my favorite characters. I thought for years that he was a leprechaun. He's not even Irish!

My son recently discovered yet another family research site. It begins with him. Then he puts in information about his parents. Then information about his grandparents. It took off from there.

Some branches end early. I believe it is because the families did not keep records and did not do family trees. Great-grandpa was orphaned as a baby and came to this country to raised by an uncle. He had older brothers. The family lost track of them over time.

Some branches go back to as far as 600 BC. Can you imagine? They are the ones who did extensive family trees.

We have discovered rascals and royalty. Most are common folk like we are. So now we are trying to find more connections to the shorter branches. It is fun but oh my is it tiring.


20 comments:

  1. You do a great job Emma. I'm afraid my family tree doesn't have many forks in it :)
    R

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    1. Parts of my tree are pretty sparse. I hope to find more but it is going to be hard.

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  2. What's the site your son found about family research? I'm working on my family tree and you're right, it is a lot of work.

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  3. The site is familysearch.org. You will enter your own information, then that of your parents. After that the information on grandparents. It gives you direct ancestors. If you find someone interesting you can Google them or see if they have any siblings that might be available. This particular site only goes straight back through parents. There are little buttons on some of the people's boxes that may give more information. Good luck. Let me know if it helps.

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  4. Genealogy is so much fun. I'm glad you are having luck finding information.

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  5. I did our family tree sometime ago and when I started it there was nothing on the internet. It was slow writing letters all over the world. I finally got back to 1700 on my husbands tree and 1500 on my father's tree. Sadly I have no children to see the work I have done, but we have met some great distant family members along the way. Take care Diane

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    1. You did the hard work. I am happy yu were able to connect with family members.

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  6. Funny, I have been interested to know the various ethnicities that make up my genes, but I have never had the slightest interest in knowing the personalities involved.

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    1. My son had a DNA test done. It was not as accurate as it should have been but after about a year they contacted him because they had new technology. Very interesting.

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  7. I always loved reading your lovely family stories dear Emma!

    i enjoy to read and want to read more .
    yes i can imagine it is tiring though is great fun still you are doing it wonderfully .

    Either my paternal grand parents died before i was born but i feel so lucky that i born among my maternal family and have lots of memories of my grand parents from my mom's side ,she had three brothers and one sister whom i knew very well and their all children are settled in the various cities of country and we meet occasionally

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    1. My cousins are scattered all over the country and even around the world. I was also fortunate to marry into a large loving family. It has multiplied my blessings.

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  8. I love your writing. I might follow your example one day and start writing about my roots.

    Greetings from London.

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    1. It is good to have a record for later generations. I encourage you to do it.

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  9. I already know about the Family Search site and did try it years ago to locate my grandfather's information. It was interesting as both my paternal and maternal grandparents had emigrated to the U.S. from Italy and there were many variations in the spellings of their last names and both grandfathers had the same first name! Another source of information is census records.

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    1. I would like to think that more information may have been added since you last looked. If it has been some time you might try again and see if anything new comes up.

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  10. Your are having a great idea.
    My grandsons and their children can know only mushrooms without names.

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    1. You need to remedy that. They must know of rainfield and his exploits.

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