Postmarked 64 Years Ago Today

My parents had been married almost two years when they took this trip from Detroit to visit my dad's family in North Dakota. They didn't have any kids yet, but I was born nine months later.

July Ruminations

I had occasion a couple weeks ago to start from scratch on researching a family. A friend of mine gave me her parents' names and birthdates, and I was curious to see what I could discover online.

Back when I started my research, there was no "online." To get a few census records, it took a four-hour drive to the National Archives branch, and a full day of hand-cranking through reels of microfilm squinting at names in hopes of finding the right ones. Next, vacations had to be planned around going to towns where my ancestors lived to find whatever records could be found there, or you had to mail a request to some librarian or county clerk or whatever, along with a check, in hopes they would find your needed document and mail you a copy when they got around to it. Every nugget of info was so hard-won. It was in times like those that the term "genealogy happy dance" came into being.

So, a couple weeks ago, I sat down at the computer with two names and birthdates in hand, and Ancestry open in one tab and FamilySearch open in another. I had no real idea what was about to happen.

By the end of the day, I had no less than five full generations of my friend's family tree documented with various census records, birth register records, and even a death certificate or two. Wow. I printed out each document, then turned it over and printed out the copied-and-pasted source info on the back. I used old-fashioned paper pedigree charts and family group sheets to build some quick-&-dirty family charts I could refer to as I went along. I also made a document inventory sheet for each direct-line ancestor and marked what documents I'd found for each.

During this process, I had the following thoughts:

• Wow. Wow. Wow. (rinse and repeat....)
• Wish I could have made these awesome print-outs right from the start when I was researching my own family tree, with all the source info printed so tidily right on the back!
• Wish I could have also downloaded image files like these and had them on my computer for easy sharing and easy import to my database.
• Speaking of which, if I were just now starting my research and my database from scratch, it would be a lot easier to cite sources than it was back in the day.
• Should I give this to my friend or not? I feel like I've stolen five generations of genealogical discovery, i.e. GENEA-FUN, that she could be having herself.
• Gosh, it would hardly be 20 years of genea-fun, would it? It wasn't even 12 hours of genea-fun. And really, it was so easily won, and could so easily be redone some other day, and by anyone, honestly, it seems a little less compelling as a pursuit.

My friend has never been interested in genealogy, and she still isn't. I did give her the work I'd done in hopes of sparking an interest, but she decided to pass it along to her genealogically-inclined uncle. He already had the info, of course, but was impressed with the way I'd prepared the documents. 

So, in the end, was it worth the time I spent on it? Most definitely yes! What a fascinating look at the way genealogy has changed in the last twenty years, for better, for worse, and particularly for different! And what a huge level of appreciation I have for all the people who have lent a hand to do scanning and uploading and indexing and all that's required to make records so readily available that twenty years' work can be done in a day.

And most of all, to those of us who did our research the old-fashioned way, before there was "online," I remind us that our labors were not time wasted. It was our interest that spurred the developments that make research a whole different animal today.

But I'm feelin' a little nostalgic for the old-time happy-dance. Didn't it have a little more vigor back then?

118 Years Ago Today: Schulte-Hauer Marriage

An evening reception had been planned, but Joseph Hauer, father of the groom, died June 6.

At my dad's house quite awhile ago, in the basement where, I'm sorry to say, all things archival have been buried for ages (yes! pictures too! feel my pain!), I happened upon a large manila envelope stuffed with greeting cards that my grandpa Rosmer Kerr had given to my grandma Evelyn during the many years of their marriage. Evelyn had even identified the contents as such on the front of the envelope.

I may have peeked at one or two of the cards. Most were still in their own little envelopes. It didn't seem like a motherlode of genealogical information or family history, just a big pack of sentimentality, and if you've been here before, you know I've had much bigger fish to fry from the archival pool in the basement. So back into the cupboard went the manila envelope full of greeting cards.

I happened to be at my dad's the other day waiting for an electrician, and since my sister had taken Dad shopping, I had nothing to do so I brought the greeting cards up and commenced going through them one by one, taking each from its envelope to have a look.

Amidst the greeting cards, tucked into one of the envelopes, I was stunned to find that several real treasures were stowed, including the one above, an invitation to the 1893 wedding of Evelyn's parents, Felix Hauer and Elizabeth Schulte.

Let this be a lesson to you, my genea-friends... make no assumptions! Go through everything!

95 Years Ago Today: Hauer-Kerr Marriage

Exemplar: It's Two! Two! Two Books in One!

Mother/Grandmother by Dominic H. White | Make Your Own Book

This book was recently featured in the Blurberati Blog, but I like it so much I wanted to feature it here too. Author Dominic H. White has done a great job with an idea that's been kicking around in my head for awhile now. But I'm not going to tell what it is... I'll let you leaf through the book and discover it yourself.