Today I was adding some of my relatives to my family tree on MyHeritage.com and I made several interesting discoveries, one being that both my sister and myself share birthdays with two of my maternal grandmother's brothers. I had already known that I shared a birthday with my Great-Uncle Ernie, but none of us has realized that my sister was born on Great-Uncle Jefferson's birthday. I found it rather ironic -- not that we shared birthdays with relatives, but that two sets of siblings shared birthdays. Maybe I'm just weird and it's not that big of a deal, but it was a surprising discovery for me.
I also found out that one of the girls (Mildred) listed as my maternal grandmother's sister was actually her cousin. Apparently her mother had when she and her siblings were very young and her and her brothers were 'doled-out' among the aunts and uncles who raised them as their own children. My mom told me that Mildred always referred to her real father as "Uncle ..." when growing up as she didn't know that he was really her father. When they eventually told her the truth (if my mom remembers correctly what her mom told her), it created a huge rift between Mildred and the rest of the family. Isn't that sad?
So, there are some random facts I discovered during my family-tree making quest...one of these days I'm going to join a genealogical website so I can delve farther back and learn more about my family history. I want my children to know where our roots were.
Does anyone else reading this have as much of a fascination with genealogy and family history as I do? What have you done to learn more about your roots?
That's so cool about the shared birthdays! I really want to know more about my anscestors and where they came from, but so far I haven't really had any success finding anything out. :-( Nobody on my mom's side seems to care very much (I can't even really find out info about my great-grandparents!). And of course...I'm too shy to talk to most of my relatives, so maybe that's my problem. My grandparents just don't know much about it and don't care.
ReplyDeleteThere is lots of information (and several geneology books) on my dad's side...but that's not really helpful because he's not my biological dad. I don't know the first thing about my biological dad and there's not anyone I can ask. So I feel like half of me will always remain a mystery. And that's frustrating because I really want to know what blood runs through my veins (in the cool sense of what countries and cultures I'm descended from, but also in a medical sense regarding possible hereditary conditions, etc.). Oh, well. :-(
Don't give up Stacey! Even if the rest of your extended family has been kind of lackadaisical about your family history, that definitely doesn't mean that you can't find information from other sources. Granted you will probably have to join one of the many genealogy websites like I will have to eventually, but all you should need at that point are a few full names and approximate dates and locations. I'd start with your grandparents on your mom's side, and if you know your biological dad's full name and if your mom can possibly remember his parents names, that may be enough to get you started. Don't give up though! In today's technological age you never know just how far you may be able to go will even the smallest lead. :-)
ReplyDeleteI can totally understand about wanting to know about the blood that runs through your veins! There is so much more that I want to know than what I already do...especially on my dad's side. My dad's brother has done some research and I'm trying to find a way to get my hands on it...apparently we are descended from the Fraser Clan in Scotland (the same clan Michelle is descended from -- isn't that funny?), but I'm not sure if that was just conjecture or if it was 100% certain. These are things I want to know more about. Hopefully we will both eventually be able to learn more about our family histories and know more about where we came from.
Good luck Stacey! It definitely isn't impossible to do!
Oh, also, I really recommend setting up an account on www.myheritage.com. It's free and it is pretty easy to add information and relatives to your personal family tree as you find out more names and cool facts. It really helps me keep everything organized as I find out more.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow...I definitely recommend checking it out. ;-)
Thank you for the encouragement! I won't give up. And I'll have to check out that website like you said... Thanks! :-)
ReplyDeleteAlso...how did you get such a pretty background? I've done so little with blogging. Is it like an upgrade thing you have to pay for? I was just trying to reformat my site a little, and they didn't offer many background choices. I didn't even have any formatting choices for my header text! :-P
How neat about the Birthdays! I've never really had much interest in genealogy, I guess I just never thought about it much! Might have to remedy that! ;)
ReplyDeleteStacey, nope, didn't pay for my background...here are some sites to check out for free backgrounds:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hotbliggityblog.com/index.php
http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/free/free-backgrounds.html
http://template-mama-freebloggertemplates.blogspot.com/
http://www.aquapoppydesigns2.blogspot.com/
http://www.shabbyblogs.com/
Happy searching!
As for the header, I did some research on CSS and HTML and then figured out how to remove the border and customize the font beyone what Blogger offers. If you want to know more about how to do that or if you have any other questions let me know, and I will do my best to answer them!
Jennifer -- if you decide to start looking into your family history, I'm sure you will have fun learning things about your ancestors that you never knew before. Be careful though! Genealogy can become addicting, ha ha! Good thing I don't have a paid subscription to any genealogical sites yet! :)