A Family History Conversation with My Granddaughter

I love this conversation I had with Little O almost a year ago when she was not yet five.  We were headed somewhere in the car with her in her car seat in the back and me at the steering wheel.

We were just chatting about this and that when she turned the conversation to families and family relationships.  Her mom had just had a baby a few weeks earlier.  She told me there were six people in her family now:  her mom and dad, her three brothers, and herself.  Little O continued, saying that "Papa" and I were her mom's mom and dad and that her other grandparents were her Dad's mom and dad. 

I asked her who else she knew in our family.  She said, "Aunt BeBe."

I asked, "How is Aunt BeBe related to you?"

I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw her little index finger pointing skyward for emphasis as she said, "Well, I do know that Aunt BeBe is my mom's aunt."

I told her, "Well, actually, Aunt BeBe is your mom's sister."

"Nooooo" she said with absolute disbelief.

"Yes," I said, "your mom is Aunt BeBe's older sister."

She was quiet for a minute as if processing this new information, trying to fit all the pieces together yet still doubting it could be correct.  Then she asked, "Who was Aunt BeBe born of?" 

"Aunt BeBe was born to me, just like your mom was born to me.  They are both my daughters, and your mom and Aunt BeBe are sisters."

Again, her response was one of disbelief.  She was quiet for a while -- a weighty topic for a girl of four -- and then moved the conversation away from family relationships.  Later that day I started to make her a little family tree chart but decided she was probably just a bit too young for it to make much sense. 

How I love that girl!  I still chuckle when I think of her confident statement, "I do know that Aunt BeBe is Mom's sister" and her mature and old-fashioned question, "Who was Aunt BeBe born of?"  What four-year-old uses that phrase these days?!  Who of any of us uses that phrase these days?!

I'm not quite sure that she has the relationship sorted out in her mind yet -- or believes it -- but she'll understand it one of these days.  Perhaps Little O will become our next family history buff.

–Nancy.

Copyright ©2019, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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A Confession

Everyone is in the same situation I am as far as ancestors go:  we all have the same number of them.  By my count, after 2 parents the number of ancestors in each successive generation back in time doubles, making 14 ancestors by the time we reach our great-grandparents, 126 ancestors by our 4th great-grandparents, and 1,022 by the time we get to our 8th great-grandparents.

But me?  I confess:  I have absolutely too many ancestors.  Finding 1,022 individuals who lived as long ago as the 1700s is entirely too many.  For that matter, finding 126 ancestors seems like too many, too.

Maybe the problem is not the number of ancestors but the fact that I have to find so much information about them to recognize them as my own family members.  A simple search for a death record, which if not available, may turn into a search for a burial record, or a will or probate record, or an obituary, or some other record to indicate a death date and location and a family relationship.  Going back in time we search for a marriage record, either civil or church, and/or banns, or a newspaper article, possibly even an article detailing an anniversary celebration.  Or maybe it's someone else's will naming the couple as husband and wife.  Of course, there's the search for a birth record, either civil or church, newspaper announcement, etc.  And the list of possible documents goes on....

If you want my opinion, there are just too many records and documents available.  We don't need all those documents.  The only ones we need are the ones that document my family.  I suppose we should keep the ones that document your family, too, shouldn't we?

And there are so many places to search for those documents.  If there were three specific, known places to find each ancestor's information it would be so much easier.  Found and done.  But no, the records are all over the place -- online in any number of genealogy collections, in courthouses, in libraries, at historical societies....  Not to mention the fact that our ancestors didn't stay in one place. 

Then there are the relationships.  Keeping them straight is a challenge.  Someone asks, "Who was so-and-so's husband?"  Uh... let me check.  I can't remember everyone.  Besides not remembering them, I confuse them.  Was it Robert Laws or Robert Reay?  You'd think I could keep everyone straight.  After all, they ARE my family.  I can keep three generations of couples in mind and remember who belongs where in the family structure, but when it comes to the children, which we sometimes have to find, that's another problem altogether.  Some ancestors married again after the death of a spouse or after a divorce which means more searches.  Add to that the fact that children died, more children were born who were sometimes given the same name as children who died.  Some ancestors have the same name, passed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter or from father to son to grandson.  Who is who?  Sometimes those names were given to nieces and nephews, confusing the matter even more.  Ancestors can be a challenge to keep in line.

Sometimes the search has to extend to the individual's sons and daughters, sometimes to his or her  siblings, sometimes even more broadly, all in the search for and hope of finding my direct ancestor's parents.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I really want to find all the children of an ancestor so I can gather the family back together.  More people, more challenges -- too many people.

Of course, it's not enough to know only dates of birth, death, and marriage.  I want to know if they owned property, where they lived, what the house looked like, who built it, what church they attended, how far it was to get there, what their occupations were, whether they owned a business or were paid employees, etc.  For my farming ancestors I want to know what crops they grew, how many acres of land they owned, what animals they had, the names of their horses, etc.  For my coal mining ancestors I want to know where they lived, which mines they worked in, exactly what their jobs were in the mines, how much they earned, why they moved from one mine to another, and on and on.  My ancestors could have helped a lot if they'd kept written records and passed them along to me.  (If they had written things down, I'm sure the record would have ended up in some other descendant's hands, probably someone who wouldn't have cared a whit and tossed the papers.)

But despite feeling like I have too many ancestors, I believe their spirits are alive in the Great Beyond and that they want to be found.  So I can't imagine saying to any one of them, I can't search for you.  I already have too many ancestors.  (But just between you and me, sometimes one more ancestor feels like one more ancestor too many.)

I know I wouldn't be here without every single one -- grandparent to nth great-grandparent -- so I'm grateful to each of them.  But that doesn't prevent the occasional thought that there really are just too many of them. 

How about you?  Do you have too many ancestors?

--Nancy.

Copyright © 2017, Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.
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Family Tree

I recently discovered the song "Family Tree," written by John Forster and Tom Chapin, and thought you might enjoy hearing it.  If the box below doesn't work, click this link.

 

Should you like to sing along, here are the lyrics.

Family Tree

Before the days of jello
Lived a prehistoric fellow
Who loved a maid and courted her beneath a bamboo tree.
And they had lots of children
And their children all had children
And they kept on having children until one of them had me.

Chorus
We're a family and we're a tree.
Our roots go deep down in history.
From my great great granddaddy reaching up to me,
We're a green and growing family tree.

My grandpa came from Russia,
My grandma came from Prussia.
They met in Nova Scotia,
Had my dad in Tennessee.
Then they moved to Yokohama,
Where Daddy met my Mama.
Her dad's from Alabama
And her mom's part Cherokee.

Chorus

Now one fine day I may go
To Tierra del Fuego.
Perhaps I'll meet my wife there
And we'll move to Timbuktoo.
And our kid will be bilingual
And though she may stay single,
She could of course co-mingle
With the King of Kathmandu.

Chorus

The folks in Madagascar
Aren't the same as in Alaska.
They got different foods, different moods
And different colored skin.
You may have a different name
But underneath we're much the same.
You're probably my cousin
And the whole world is our kin.

Chorus

You can tell that this fellow has done his research, though sadly he provides no documentation.

You can listen to John Forster sing more songs here.  

--Nancy.
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The Character and the Cornstalk - Friday Funny

There is no doubt in my mind that Henry Meinzen was a character.  The kind of character who does unusual, even slightly odd, things.  The guy you love because he's sweetly, funnily, or endearingly different.  He earns the status of character for several reasons. 

Henry is the guy who immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 29 in 1866, then four years later, at the age of 32, had the audacity to claim a 17-year-old immigrant from England as his bride.  (The marriage lasted until her death 50 years later.)

Henry tickled the funny bones of his young grandchildren causing laughter and giggles at bedtime.  The noise brought their mother to silence them but just moments later they erupted again in joyful glee at Henry's humor. 

Henry grew plants, a common enough activity for men of his generation.  What's uncommon is the size of some of the plants and what he did with them.  Perhaps Henry was a show-off and wanted to broadcast the success of his gardening skills.  Maybe he was just full of himself.  Or his intent could have been to share the surprise, wonder, and joy of his out-sized plants.  Here are two examples.  You decide.

In October, 1898, Henry harvested a 6-pound white radish.  Did he take it home to eat it or did he sell it?  No.  He took it to the the office of the local newspaper where they put it on display in their window then published a notice about it in the newspaper to call attention to it.  Henry must have been tickled pink.  Or was he just pleased that others could enjoy this extravagance of nature, too?

A year later, in September, 1899, the prize of Henry's garden was a cornstalk.  Not just
any cornstalk, mind you.  This cornstalk, at twelve feet, 4 inches, was nearly two and a half times taller than Henry.  He had to look nearly to the sky see its tassel.  Think of him transporting it from the farm to town then toting it into the Herald-Star office.  I imagine Henry felt surprise and wonder at the size of his corn plants.

That "Another." at the top of the note about the cornstalk causes me to wonder how often Henry took bounty from his garden to show off at the Herald-Star office.  Will I find "One More" or "A Third" brief note about a heart-shaped beet, a 3-legged carrot, or some other wonder from Henry's garden?  If he grew it and took it to the newspaper office and a note about it was published, I hope I find it.

These two notes from the newspaper were tiny paragraphs in fine print in the midst of long columns of other tiny notes.  I doubt I would ever have found them without the aid of OCR.  But here they are, found and shared.  I hope they either give you a chuckle of amusement or cause you to shake your head in wonder at a man who showed off his unusual produce.

As for me, I'm still chuckling at the character who is my great-grandfather, Henry Meinzen.

--Nancy.

Copyright © 2014 Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.

BOOK: New Technology - Friday Funny

Announcing the new Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge device (BOOK).  The BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology:  no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on.  It's so easy to use even a child can operate it.  Just lift its cover!

Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere -- even sitting in an armchair by the fire -- yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disc.   Here's how it works....

Each BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information.  These pages are locked together with a custom-fit device called a binding which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence.

Opaque Paper Technology (OPT) allows manufacturers to use both sides of the sheet, doubling the information density and cutting costs in half.  Experts are divided on the prospects for further increases in information density; for now BOOKs with more information simply use more pages.  This makes them thicker and harder to carry, and has drawn some criticism from the mobile computing crowd.

Each sheet is scanned optically, registering information directly to your brain.  A flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet.  The BOOK may be taken up at any time and used by merely opening it.  The BOOK never crashes and never needs rebooting, though like other display devices it can become unusable if dropped overboard.  The "browse" features allows you to move instantly to any sheet, and move forward or backward as you wish.  Many come with an "index" feature, which pinpoints the exact location of any selected information for instant retrieval.

An optional "BOOKmark" accessory allows you to open the BOOK to the exact place you left it in a previous session -- even if the BOOK has been closed.  BOOKmarks fit universal design standards; thus, a single BOOKmark can be used in BOOKs by various manufacturers.   Conversely, numerous bookmarks can be used in a single BOOK if the user wants to store numerous views at once.  The number is limited only by the number of pages in the BOOK.

You can also make personal notes next to BOOK text entries with an optional programming tool, the Portable Erasable Nib Cryptic Intercommunication Language Stylus (PENCILS).

Portable, durable, and affordable, the BOOK is being hailed as the entertainment wave of the future.  The BOOK's appeal seems so certain that thousands of content creators have committed to the platform.

Look for a flood of new titles soon.

Note
I have been unable to discover who wrote this announcement but it came to me via email at least 15 years ago.  BOOKs have become my favorite reading device since my early discovery of them.  I use them for leisure reading and for research and study, especially for family history.  I'm especially fond of PENCILS for making notes in less permanent BOOKs such as noteBOOKs and journals.

How about you?  Are you a BOOKs fan or do you favor some other form of reading device?

Image courtesy of kshelton at Pixabay.

--Nancy.
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Rules for Our Ancestors - or - How to Confuse Your Descendants

1. Thou shalt name your male children: James, John, Joseph, Josiah, Abel, Richard, Thomas, William.  
2. Thou shalt name your female children: Elizabeth, Mary, Martha, Maria, Sarah, Ida, Virginia, May. 
3. Thou shalt leave NO trace of your female children. 
4. Thou shalt, after naming your children from the above lists, call them by strange nicknames such as: Ike, Eli, Polly, Dolly, Sukey, making them difficult to trace. 
5. Thou shalt NOT use any middle names on any legal documents or census reports, and only where necessary, you may use only initials on legal documents. 
6. Thou shalt learn to sign all documents illegibly so that your surname can be spelled, or misspelled, in various ways: Hicks, Hickes, Hix, Hixe, Hucks, Kicks. 
7. Thou shalt, after no more then 3 generations, make sure that all family records are lost, misplaced, burned in a court house fire, or buried so that NO future trace of them can be found.
8. Thou shalt propagate misleading legends, rumors, & vague innuendo regarding your place origination. 
   a. You may have come from: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales....or Iran.
   b. You may have American Indian ancestry of the______tribe......
   c. You may have descended from one of 3 brothers that came over from______.
9. Thou shalt leave NO cemetery records or headstones with legible names. 
10. Thou shalt leave NO family Bible with records of birth, marriages, or deaths. 
11. Thou shalt ALWAYS flip thy name around. If born James Albert, thou must make all the rest of thy records in the names of Albert, AJ, JA, AL, Bert, Bart, or Alfred. 
12. Thou must also flip thy parents' names when making reference to them, although "Unknown" or a blank line is an acceptable alternative. 
13. Thou shalt name at least 5 generations of males, and dozens of their cousins, with identical names in order to totally confuse researchers.

Note: Several of my ancestors may possibly have collaborated on these rules and enforced them among many others of my ancestors. Gotta love those ancestors! .
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A Little Genealogy Silliness

I first heard "I Am My Own Grampa" at an outdoor evening performance several summers ago in Nauvoo, Illinois. It sounds preposterous, and perhaps it really is, but I thought this little video demonstrates its possibility quite simply. If true, it certainly would be a genealogist's nightmare filling out family groups sheets and pedigree charts! Enjoy.
And here are the lyrics should you want to figure out the relationships or sing along.

I Am My Own Grampa
by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe

Many, many years ago
When I was twenty-three
I got married to a widow
Who was pretty as could be.

This widow had a grown up daughter
With flowing hair of red.
My father fell in love with her
And soon the two were wed.

This made my dad my son-in-law
And changed my very life.
Now my daughter was my mother,
For she was my father's wife.

To complicate the matter
Although it brought me joy,
I soon became the father
Of a bouncing baby boy.

My little baby then became
A brother-in-law to dad,
And so became my uncle,
Though it made me very sad.

For if he was my uncle,
then that also made him brother
To the widow's grown up daughter,
Who of course was my step-mother.

Father's wife then had a son
Who kept them on the run,
And he became my grandson
For he was my daughter's son.

My wife is now my mother's mother
And it makes me blue
Because although she is my wife,
She's now my grandma too.

If my wife is my grandmother,
Then I am her grandchild
And every time I think of it
It simply drives me wild.

For now I have become
The strangest case you ever saw,
As the husband of my grandmother,
I am my own grandpa!