I appreciate my ancestors. I really do. But the path to document their lives has been no easy task. I realize this more and more as I research the ancestors of others.
My own family lines are either from the South, other countries, or both. The places they came from don't have county histories or other publications about the area. My ancestors aren't in the books.
This situation has been made abundantly clear as I take on more and more client work. One person's ancestors are all over 1600's Connecticut. I found so many books mentioning this family line. Another client has a Salem witch in the tree. No shortage of information there.
Recently, I worked on my husband's family tree. He doesn't care much, so I do it for fun, curiosity, the chance to dispel myths, and in case my son catches on some day. I spent one evening looking at his Pierson line. You'd think that semi-common name would post some challenges, but it was really quite easy to gather information on his direct line. I kept going further and further back until I hit a prominent ancestor and all the wonderful records that come with him.
Meanwhile, in my own tree I'm wrestling with names like Joszt and Czwetelics in an area of Europe that changed country borders whenever the wind blew. JOSZT and CZWETELICS? Are you kidding me? Those surnames look like my cat walked across the keyboard.
Fine. I accept my fate. There is little to no information on my ancestors. It is my job to produce that information and make it available for future generations. I am the chosen one in the family, blah blah blah...
Genealogy is unfair. I get it now.
Oh, and in case my son is reading my blog...this Abraham Pierson guy is your 9th great-grandfather on your father's side. He even has his own statue.
Great post. I hope your son is reading this because the next generations fall on his shoulders to be the chosen one...
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the club. I'm the president. You can be vice-president or sergeant-at-arms, take your pick. I'm sure I'm the only genealogy blogger whose ancestors didn't write letters or keep diaries. Lord knows they didn't make it into a book.
ReplyDeleteThe Path Traveled - I expect it to skip a generation or two. I'm ready for that. My research will hold. :)
ReplyDeleteWendy - yes, sign me up for this club. No diaries on my side, either.
What, genealogy isn't fair?!?! I wish someone had told me this earlier. :-0
ReplyDeleteWendy - if you are president and Amy is VP can I at least be a flunky? I think my ancestors made it their personal goal in life to NEVER be mentioned in anything - county histories, newspapers etc. I have a friend who is only very marginally interesting in genealogy and I can find boatloads of stuff - for her!
DianaR, We're looking for a Secretary. Your job will be to mention us by name OFTEN so that future generations will find us.
ReplyDeleteBetween my Poles and my husband's Ukrainians I'm exhausted, and of course spellings change depending on the direction of the wind. Some days I feel like I'm on Wheel of Fortune. I'd like to buy a vowel...
ReplyDeleteCynthia - I guess I should be thankful that only a portion of my tree needs to buy a vowel. It's the Hungarians. On the other hand, I have too many Smiths and Jones in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI read it :).
ReplyDeleteI wonder if that's why I stick to my mom's family more than my dad's family. My mom's family is from Michigan and Canada, which have plenty of records, particularly online records, going back to the 1830s.
ReplyDeleteLove your post. I have so felt that way when reading about people easily finding family in books etc. I thought genealogy was all about sweat and poor eyesight from reading films. ; )
ReplyDeleteI feel your frustration. Many times while working at the FHL I would instantly find information for a patron, yet search in vain for info. On my own. Definitely not fair!
ReplyDeleteMay I join your club? Please????
ReplyDeleteSince we all seem to have better success researching other peoples’ lines, perhaps we should organize “Trade an Ancestor Week”! I have a John Smith in early Kentucky...anyone wanna trade?
ReplyDeleteI'm in....with all the comments I am beginning to think that there are more ancestors with no information than there are with information.
ReplyDeleteI have access to a very few letters. No diaries. And when my ancestors married out of the family, they gravitated toward people whose surnames were Smith and Jones.
ReplyDeleteI'd be happy to be the cupcake chairman for the club.
This is the case in our family. I was born in Essex County, Massachusetts which has wonderful archives, town histories, and a plethora of resources. My family lived there for 12 generations or more. However, my husband is a first generation American. To work on his family tree we have to physically go to Spain and visit the village churches. There are few town histories, and fewer other resources. However, familysearch.org has recently provided us with many, many scanned images from some of these church records. We even found some scanned records on the Spanish National Archives website that we didn't find in an actual trip to the same archive in Madrid. Now I no longer have to wait for a return trip to Spain to look up many records. This was impossible 25 years ago. Who knows what the future will bring.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like my KERR family except they arrived from Ireland on alien space ships. On the other hand, the 'non-genealogist' hubby has an abundance of genealogy glory awaiting him at every turn in North eastern USA. It ain't fair. Can I join the club too?
ReplyDeleteI have come up with my own variation on Finagle's Law: Any Packard listed in any database, book, index, or other finding aid is someone else's Packard, not mine. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteMine ancestors did not keep records or journals, either. And drat it all, most of them behaved themselves!
That makes it really hard!
I volunteer to be treasurer. And if I see one more Ag-Lab in a census I'll scream. I'ld love to see a signature somewhere on a marriage register but no, X marks the spot for most of mine up until the very late 19th century.
ReplyDeleteMy one exception are my convicts; all 4 of them transported from England and Scotland to "Down Under" leaving behind a lot of detail in the criminal registers and prison archives.
I can understand completely, though I have no surnames in my family without vowels, though being from Enid, I grew up around a few. As my mother's side of the family is completely Southern I have experienced the same trials with Southern genealogy. Southern courthouses were given to spontaneous combustion of the non-Sherman variety. My Yankee are not that much better, they were in Connecticut and Long Island, at the time, part of Connecticut, founding colonies and then the line to my ancestor, who seems to have popped up out of the prairie in Illinois, dims a bit.
ReplyDeleteLove this post and the comments ,especially "Those surnames look like my cat walked across the keyboard."
ReplyDeleteMy kids stifle their yawns politely when I land something on something new .
I am in the club too - Jones and Millers and Vladikovskys.
Ha!Ha!Ha! I love this post Amy. Where do I sign-up for the "trade an ancestor week"?
ReplyDelete