Personal Genealogy Stories

Never Trust a Document – Especially On Your Wedding Day

I’ve found so many marriage records in my family where the bride’s age has been shaved a little…..or her marital status has been adjusted (leading to the discovery of two cases of bigamy) …..or a father’s employment has been inflated (one of the recurring ones  is the elevation of an ag.lab. to ‘farmer’ – we had aspirations, but not status, it seems)…..or a father’s name has been changed or even invented.  So maybe the answer lies in people’s perception of marriage?  It has to be one of the most conventional and respectable states in our society; so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised if brides and grooms (more often brides, in my experience) adjust inconvenient truths to become the life-story they would rather tell, when embarking on this stage of life.

Grandma, Thanks for the Memories – Granddad, Thanks for Hoarding Them

Directly under the 2013 High School applications is my grandmother’s (Holly Guthrie’s) 1930 High School memory book. Project #2 is identifying her high school mates for the Unclaimed Ancestor blog. Holly was the valedictorian of Mullin High School in Mills County, Texas in 1930. And to my never-ending delight she kept a memory book. Nearly every page is full of photos, newspaper clippings, notes from friends, complete with a best friend and a high school sweetheart. It is truly priceless and contains photos that I’m sure other families will be thrilled to have as well. I discovered it, like all great finds, accidentally.

The Carriveau Curse

My husband’s paternal grandmother was a Carriveau by birth.  They were a family who seemed to live under a shadow of misfortune. The patriarch of the family was Laurent Corriveau, who came from Quebec to Michigan in the late 1800s after his young wife died (probably in childbirth).  He and his second wife Eugenie, who went by “Annie,” settled in Huron County, Michigan—“The Thumb” as Michiganders say—where they began to spell their last name “Carriveau.”  In the 1910 census Annie reports that they had “thirteen children, eleven still living.”  Nine are shown in this picture, with Larry and Annie front and center.

Norman Mosey and Donna Garver: A Soldier’s Love Story

War had been declared, and Norman Mosey, a farm boy from Michigan,  was newly drafted into the U.S. Navy.  A reporter for Michigan Farmer magazine did a story about ‘our boys in the service” and when he asked Norman, “What can we at home do for our servicemen?” Norman answered, “Write us letters.”  Norman had no mother or sisters or girlfriend to write to him, so mail call was probably not his best time of the day.

Never Trust a Document…or a Gravestone

I’m tickled pink that I’ve had comments about document wrongnesses in other people’s families – Norah’s gt-gran Jane who was really ‘Mercy’; her ancestor Cornelius who apparently died at 115; MJ’s gt-gran who varied her forename AND her surname …(quite…); and Melvin, you are SO RIGHT to say “do not accept anything…without verifying the facts”. And thanks to Donna for the encouragement – since I’ve never done this before, it’s very welcome.

Never Trust a Document: A Story of My Great-Aunt Ceridwen

To begin at the beginning [spot the quote]:  NEVER TRUST THE WRITTEN WORD Why? Because all too often it’s the product of what somebody wants to hide or change; or the product of some official’s poor hearing, poor sight or inability to interpret handwriting. Occasionally, it’s wrong because somebody innocently believes something untrue.

Homesley and Holmes: A Story of Surname Discovery

I was forever quizzing my family about their ancestry. Names and dates were vague, but after a few years I put together a skeletal genealogy. However, it did take me a long time to learn how and what questions to ask. That communication skill is a learned art for any genealogist. It wasn’t until 1983 that my greatest breakthrough and brick wall happened.