My father introduced me to genealogy after developing a paternal lineage family tree. While I was intrigued by the names & dates of all these fathers & father's fathers, I felt disappointed by the missing mothers & mother's mothers. While many of the wives' given names were included, every single one of them lacked a maiden name. Historically, they had only been known as "Mrs Husband's Name."
Surely they, too, each had a family lineage and a story to tell of their own, didn't they? How could I learn who they were? Where had they come from? Could I find a way to discern how they'd navigated the specific challenges & hardships endured by the women of their era? Was there a way to discover their personal histories, or to recreate their life stories? Could I breathe life back into them, and celebrate their independent identities?
I decided to begin my genealogical journey by interviewing both of my grandmothers. I started by asking about their parents identities, where they came from, and anything else they could remember.
My maternal Grandma told me her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, had all been named Elizabeth (it was also her middle name). She went on to recount that her mother had had "oh, I think it was 8...no, maybe it was 9... or was it 10? brothers & sisters. Most of them died, though, before I was born. But I do remember visiting one aunt often, but then she died when I was about 4. Her name was Loretta, but we called her Aunt Zita"
Grandma continued to dig into her memories, and told me her mother had had 2 brothers named Edward; the 2nd one was born after the 1st one died, so my 2G grandparents named the next male child born, after the 1st, breaking from the Irish naming tradition, in order to honor their deceased first son. She did know one of her mother's brothers very well, her Uncle Joseph, as she'd grown up in the same house with him, as he, too, shared the home with both her mother & grandmother. He'd been the only father figure she had, as her own father ("we never talked about him") had disappeared when she was only 2 years of age. (Oh! a mystery yet to reveal!)
Similarly, my paternal grandmother had only vague memories of aunts or uncles and elder generation, but she was able to provide a few names, as well as this one short, but delightful, little story about her Grandmama McNeill, who "used to sit in a rocking chair on the front porch, smoking a corncob pipe, which shocked everyone, because it wasn't very lady-like!" That small detail, along with her Grandpapa's given name, opened the historical doors to a Laird of Barre Isle, Scotland, and the emigration & settling of Nova Scotia, by these particularly adventuresome Scots.
I dug deeper into the resources I had at hand (Ancestry, libraries, Family Search, etc), and tried a few month-long subscriptions to other genealogy sites. From these few sources I continued to glean smidgens of details on my maternal lineages. I discovered more evidence about their place in history, and tidbits about their life experiences from newspaper clippings. Soon, my roots began growing deeper, and more branches sprung upwards, growing leafy with kinfolk, past and present!
I also found more & more amazing stories, too, about both mother and fathers --although not all of which were kind! Some were shocking. Some were sad, and some were even uncomfortable, or shameful. Still, these were truths that deserved to be told.
But all of the women, many with maiden names now reclaimed, finally had stories & histories of their own revealed at last! They'd experienced moments of happiness, depths of loss, and everything in between that we call living. They had real journeys of their own, along a life path that winded its way through history, leading them all the way into this present time ...within me!
And in discovering their courageous journeys, retelling their stories, I was given a great gift: a sense of belonging in this world --of being rooted in history, through them. And I wanted to share this experience of self discovery with others.
One day, after recounting my story of self-discovery through years of genealogy research, a friend asked if I might build a tree for her, too. She, too, wanted to know where she came from, and to discover how she came to become herself. Many trees & numerous stories later, created on behalf of others as well as my own, I found myself here, ready to learn and earn a Genealogist's professional certificate
I used to dream of becoming a professional Genealogist, but only now am I finally ready to take the steps to become what I want to be. I'm here to continue developing skills & proficiency in genealogy research, so that I may tell more in-depth, verifiable & true stories about the mothers & grandmothers ...and yes, of fathers & grandfathers, too... and maybe even some of the stories about your aunts & uncles and any number of countless cousins!
I'm here to discover your story: to walk with you back through history & time, and then regale you with the wondrous, winding tale of how you, became you.