Rooted by Blood, DNA and a lot of BS: family trees

Showing posts with label family trees. Show all posts

Monday, August 1, 2022

Don't get mad - request military records

This handsome young man is my Grand-Uncle. I have always been curious about him - He served in the US Army from 1910 to 1914 so he was not in WW1. Perhaps Spanish American, The Mexican Border War, or The Philippines.

It starts out with his birth in 1893, born in Scott County, Tennessee. He's in one census - 1900. I can't find him in any 1910 census. I checked his mother (my great grandmother and his siblings) Only one of them has a 1910 census - the sister who married. I'm thinking, these are country folk - in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee - a fiercely independent bunch. It's quite possible, they just didn't do a census that year - too busy making some good old moonshine!

On Ancestry, information keeps popping up that he was murdered in 1918 in Oklahoma on an Indian Reservation. As I said yesterday, bad information skews the algorithms on Ancestry - When I took the time to go over the 512 family trees that copied this bad information, over and over again - they have no sources, no documentation.

I took it upon myself once again, to search out someone with a name similar to my Grand Uncle and came across a native American with a similar name to his, that was a troublemaker - and finally was whacked on the reservation. It's NOT my Grand Uncle who served in the US Army and he doesn't deserve to have his name trashed or connected to this. I need to prove it though.

My husband tells me I can't fix it - the bad information is just too big for me. But what I can do, is REQUEST from the US National Archives his military records.

https://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records

I admit, without a social security number (they didn't have them at this time) it will be hard for them to locate anything on him. I don't have a birth date only his birth year and even that is questionable. I do have his honorable discharge date - June 1914.

I look into this young man's eyes which were blue according to his enlistment record - and I have to find out or at least do everything I can, within reason.

Knowing how S L O W the government moves - it will no doubt take weeks/months.

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

What is my story?

I always loved listening to my mom tell me about our "Family Tree." Back then, there was no internet and no Ancestry.com. I joined Ancestry just after my Dad passed away in 2007. I've been hooked on Genealogy ever since. No, I am not LDS - this is a hobby of mine that I thoroughly enjoy.

Since then, many in my family have passed away - and I am the only one left - the keeper of our Family Tree until I get too old to do it anymore. I still have many years ahead of me, Lord willing.

In November, my 29-year-old niece passed away unexpectedly - not from Covid19. Not even a full 4 weeks later, my 94-year-old father-in-law passed away from complications due to a stroke. I have been updating and adding that information. If it weren't for me, it wouldn't get done. I feel it is my duty to my family and descendants to try and make sense of our story.

My FIL left us a story of his life - written up to the 1990s. He still had more life to live - he married 2 more times after that and did some moving. We enjoyed his tales that go back to 1926. A glimpse of what life was like back then. I wish my Dad was able to write his story before he died. What a precious gift that was from my father-in-law.

It has me thinking, at age 67, come March - perhaps I should write my story. Print it up and save it for my kids. Have you written down your life story? I'm not talking about a blog either. Something tangible for them to pick up and read.

I hope to start work on that this year.

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Friday, April 7, 2017

Start them young - make a family tree

I served as a Early Childhood professional and Nanny for 30 years. Every year, I would attempt to teach the little ones (2-4) about their families. At that age, they can only wrap their head around what they actually see - rather some dead gggreat-grandmother!

Daddy, Mommy, siblings, aunties, uncles and cousins. Oh and Grandparents! Whoever is in their lives. Sometimes, it was only a Mom and Grandmother - others were loaded with cousins and aunts and uncles.

Here are some ways to introduce the family tree in crafts. Get their whole family involved and then save it and frame it. Cut out pictures if you can, or let them draw their family, as they see them.

I guarantee you - this involvement, this will wet their whistle for future genealogy quests. Then you'll have someone to turn it all over to, someday.