52 Ancestors 52 Weeks! Week 1

 My goal is to be a better and more consistent blogger in 2025.  I still have a lot to say about my genealogical research in 2024 and will do so soon. 

I decided to participate in Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors 52 Weeks initiative. Once you sign up, she sends a prompt each week and you can interpret it and work on it any way you wish. I did post week one on her Facebook where other participants are posting. I will also post here. I hope to think of new avenues and ancestors for storytelling and to build on my writing skills.  

Week One: Beginnings.

I learned as a pretty young girl that I was interested in genealogy, except I didn't know there was a name for it. I was a voracious reader, I love History and I felt very rooted in place. My father and his father were all born in our small town like my brother, sister and I. I couldn't walk in town without being recognized as my father's daughter.  My mother and her father and his father and so on, were all born, lived and died in the same area, not too far from where I grew up.  

Every year my dad would take his mother to the local nursery for geraniums and we would go to the cemetery and plant them. She would tell me all about her uncles and aunts and grandparents. This is where my love for walking the cemetery was born. 

One the other hand, when I peppered my maternal grandmother for details about her parents, the only set of grandparents I had not born in America, her response was, "that's why people came to America, to forget." I admit her answer only encouraged me to want to learn more. I learned much later, her mother came to America, alone at age 14.

My love of reading and learning, my interest in History and curiosity (some might say nosiness) led me to become a librarian.  At my first library job I discovered the Local History room. I was amazed to see my own ancestors in some of the books and files and I was hooked.  

About the same time my mother cousin was downsizing. He had boxes in his attic from his grandmother, my great grandmother and did I want them? I like to say this was the day I won genealogy lotto. 

Lucky for me, Granny was a hoarder. I didn't have any idea the value of what I was given the day I took those boxes, full of letters, photos, receipts and more home.  It's taken me years to untangle it all and make connections between the people in those letters, photos, or clippings of obituaries. I still have clues from those boxes and I am still searching for connections. I am lucky to have such a been given such a useful gift especially now that I am a much better and experienced researcher. I am proud to be the keeper of this archive.