16 October 2010

Saturday Night Fun - The Blame Game

Who's to blame? For some genealogical fun from Genea-Musings based upon Brenda Joyce Jerome's blog post, here's a post about how my interest in genealogy was sparked:

In February of 1989 a newspaper writer commented on a cousin's marriage, implying that the ancestry of his new spouse could be traced way (way, way.... back) and stated that my cousin's family could be traced back to his parents. His grandparents were still living, but how much of an exaggeration was it - how far past his parents could the family be traced? I knew the names of our mutual great-grandparents (our grandfathers were brothers), but after that.... ? I felt challenged to find out who resided in my family tree.

My aunt gave me copies of all of the family memorabilia that had been given to her, but no one was actively ancestor searching.

As a bonus my new quest was parlayed into college credits. Initially after committing to the subject of genealogy for a term paper, brick walls magically appeared. A visit to a terrific genealogical library (Burton Historical Collection) didn't help with my personal research. After consulting with my aunt, I realized that some assumptions were not valid. Armed with correct information, my research went much better.

To make a long story short, it was the newpaper columnist's fault!

2 comments:

Brenda Joyce Jerome said...

The mention of Burton Historical Collection brings back memories of my many hours spent researching there while living in Oakland County. Thanks for mentioning both my blog and Burton!

PalmsRV said...

Thanks for reading the blog, Brenda.

Cathy