Saturday morning I woke up with no plan for the day. This turned into a morning spent on family history work. I’ve been working on my father’s side of the family and brought him some census records to see if we could figure out which of these people sharing our last name actually were related to us. As he was filling in the gaps, my father mentioned that he used to have a family bible.
So we tore the basement apart looking for my grandmother’s trunk thinking the bible might be in there – never found the trunk, so we’ll come back to that (we never throw anything away and are certain the trunk is around somewhere or at least the contents must be). But we did find my grandmother’s suitcase, containing some of her belongings and a ton of pictures.
I spent hours looking through them all, realizing there was much more to my family’s story than I ever even thought there might be. For example, I had never known that my parents went back to school together for Masters Degrees – my mother’s in Nursing, my father’s in Math (a second Master’s for him – he also has an MBA). I laughed at some of the old letters, and definitely laughed at some of the pictures – my father, age 2, overalls with no shirt and a hat as big as him.
Of course there were the emotional moments. I found evidence of pieces of our family’s past that we just don’t discuss. There may always be questions I’m afraid to ask my parents. Some parts of the past will be left there, and I may be happier just letting that happen. But there were plenty of good emotional moments too.
Toward the end I came across a notepad. The first page held a poem – I’m not sure if my grandmother wrote it, or if she just liked it and wrote it down.
On the next page I found one of my favorite hymns.
Though my heart had been full through the whole exploration process, I was completely unprepared for the moment when I found that hymn scrawled in her dear handwriting. And though I knew it was important to go through all these things and sort out the past, in that moment I realized how much of an impact this would have on me.
I discovered yesterday that my beautiful grandmother and I are so much alike. When she died I was very young, and though we had met I have no memories of her. What I found most important about yesterday was that I was able to feel the love that she had for me – something I had never even considered before now. Maybe it sounds silly that I wouldn’t think she loved me, but it truly never crossed my mind that she would have had any feelings about me. Now I know that she did.
I’m really looking forward to the next time I get a chance to sit down and work on the family tree. My mother’s cousin has done a lot of that research for her side of the family and she’s agreed to send it to me so I’m excited to see that. For now though I have the huge task of scanning all the pictures I’ve come across so far. As soon as I get them scanned I promise to share the good ones (like that one of my father, cause if you know him…well, even if you don’t, trust me, you want to see it).
I may have told you this before, but my grandfather got big into the genealogy stuffs some years ago. Our proudest discovery was a blood connection to Jesse James, the train robber. So… slightly different family history experience. 🙂 But… as we've already determined, you and I have slightly different families. To say the least.
So, are you doing your family research because you'd like to do their work (baptisms, endowments, sealings) or just because it interests you … or both?
Perhaps you've always had a passion for your genealogy, but I hope you've been told by someone, somewhere that THIS is what was meant when Elijah said the hearts of the children would be turned to their fathers! In other words, this is a definite righteous desire — to save the deceased! (I know I'm corny, but I just KNOW the gospel is true!)
Elijah's words were exactly what was going through my mind as I was sitting there looking through my grandmother's things. I'd love to someday do the work for my family members, though it's decidedly overwhelming right now since there's a lot to do. Still, gotta start somewhere – and my father is the last of his family line still alive so I really do want to get as much of the genealogy recorded as I can while his memory is still good. I will definitely be sharing more about this, it's so dear to my heart.
Awesome! Good for you!
Don't be overwhelmed — that's what the members are for! General temple patrons can do the work of any of your ancestry. You just have to submit their names/dates of birth. Never forget that one of the church's 4 part mission is to redeem the dead!
So cool!!!!
Nanny loves that song, too. She used to play the piano and have your Mom sing it. I love genealogy, just wish I had more time to do it. THe family history libraries have some amazing resources.
She made my mother sing it?? That's even more wonderful that both of my grandmothers love that song! Seriously, amazing. Family history work is the best.
I think my family tree is a few branches short of full bloom.