Family
Who We Are?
What's the story behind the story?
There's so much to learn and now we have tools to delve into the family history.
Family pictures were always a part of our home. Growing up, I never asked where they came from, they were just always there. But all that changed 5 years ago when my mother died and our family home in Sacramento became my responsibility. As I walked through the house, I realized it was now mine to deal with….every bed, chair, lamp and carpet, every pen, pencil and scrap of paper, every hammer, nail and screw…..everything that had accumulated since the house was built in 1949. Oh, and of course, all the family pictures.
Every house has them, drawers and cupboards filled with pictures and photo albums. The classic school pictures were there, everyone lined up on the front steps of the elementary school with the plaque reading, “Mrs. Johnson’s 4th Grade, 1959.” Pictures from birthday parties and holidays, all mixed together with holiday recipes from Betty Crocker and instruction manuals for the Sunbeam waffle iron. But that was the easy stuff. I opened the hall closet to find the oversized, overstuffed photo albums, filled with pictures of people and places before my time, bulging with newspaper clippings sticking out at all angles. And then there was the attic.
The attic, the word gives me chills. Loose pictures, framed pictures, and shoe boxes labeled “old negatives.” What we are talking about here was nothing less than the accumulation of generations. I found myself sitting on the attic floor surrounded by my departed relatives asking, “How far do these go back?” ”Who are these people?” and “What am I supposed to do with all this?” But one thing was perfectly clear, they were now mine. After much pondering, I did the only thing that made sense….I put them in storage.
But last year, the siren call of history lured me to unlock the door and bring the first box home. It was filled with pictures of my father’s family dating back to 1904. My Dad wouldn’t talk about his family while he was alive, but this box of photos spoke volumes. My grandfather had died before I was born, but here was a picture of my Grandfather Max when he was14 years old. Hey, Max, it’s good to finally meet you. And who were the rest of the people in the pictures? To answer those questions, I turned to Ancestry.com. And you know who I found? Everyone.
Internet genealogy sites have transformed family research. You can learn about aunts and uncles, cousins and family members stretching back through the years….who lived where and when. Voting records, U.S. census records, draft registration cards and address listings are just a few of the sources that show up on my computer screen. I found an application for a visa written by my great grandfather in 1879…in his handwriting. Amazing. And then I started getting contacts from relatives that I didn’t even know existed. What do family pictures mean to me? Well, a lot more than they did before.
For example, my father’s mother, my Nana, was a pretty dour, joyless senior citizen. She did have her moments….she taught me gin rummy and cribbage, but she never struck me as happy. That is, until I started digging through the pictures. They showed a young person full of joy and laughter, surrounded by friends and family. There were pictures of country outings to the Marin headlands in 1905, my Nana smiling and happy with her friends in a theater production in 1907. And most amazing of all, my Nana falling in love with my grandfather Max and their son, my Dad. These weren’t just pictures, they were an invitation to revise how I knew my grandmother……understand the life she lived and through her pictures, reveal her youthful heart. How precious is that?
And the hits just keep coming. The further I explore, the more my family pictures have to offer. And the very best thing of all? Sharing them with my family and friends. I’ve emailed pictures, posted them on Facebook and connected everyone in my family to our shared history. These pictures have changed how I look at my own life and I would encourage everyone to explore their family and themselves by opening those boxes of family pictures.
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Comments:
Here are a few tips to help your Family History research be both fun and fruitful. Just like solving a complex puzzle, or unraveling a mystery bit by bit, delving into past generations is best approached with a both a plan and focus. Once you get back beyond your parent’s generation, the number of “family lines “grows exponentially. – Steve Tierra, Graton
# 1 – Don’t put off going to visit “Aunt Sally”: Aside from the act that she might like a visit from her grown-up niece or nephew, many (though, unfortunately, not all) of the older generation would probably love to talk, share stories and drag out some old family pictures. Remember, we’re all here for such a short time; if you don’t talk to her soon, you might not get the chance when it’s more convenient.
# 2 – Never underestimate the vagaries of language : The spelling of family names has taken some serious twists and turns over the years and that last name you are looking for might not be spelled the way you think. Many on-line resources offer a search option called “soundex”; where the results of your search for one spelling will also return results for other “sounds like” variations. For example, one my family lines is the surname Carbajal. Even with the soundex option, I routinely search for its many variants such as : Caravajal, Carrabajal, Caravahal, Carvajal, and even Caravagal.
# 3- If you can’t find who you are looking for, try someone else: This tip is especially helpful during the eras when families tended to live more closely together than they often do today. My great grandfather was Fredrick Rumbold; trust me Fred Rumbold is not an uncommon name, so when I ran into dead ends, I searched for his brother Arlington Rumbold (and his sons Zar and Dallas). The City Directories for Flint, Michigan listed those “odd names” and they also turned up GreatGrandpa Fred living nearby.
# 4 – Leverage your time and money: While you certainly can engage in serious family research all by yourself and without using any on-line resources, you’ll quickly learn that subscribing to one of the many on-line services is worth the money. When it’s done well, these sites offer strong search capabilities of old census records, newspapers, old draft registration records and the like. While you prowl around looking for old Uncle Bertie, you just find someone else who is “working on that line” too. Virtually all these sites have a “message” feature that allows you communicate with those other members using the same service. It was one of “those other people” who, out of generosity of their heart, sent me the original of the earliest photograph I have of my grandfather.
# 5 – Organize your findings, right away: Whether you elect to use family history software to organize what you find, or draw your own charts with pen and paper, you’ll quickly end up with copies, and notes and correspondence about the people you are searching.. Knuckle down and organize your papers or they will quickly become useless when you can find the record that you think you found just last week. Making file folders by surname is a good place to start, but you’ll probably find yourself making individual folders for specific people when your interest, or their interesting life provides you with too much to mix with the rest of the family.