In 1989, a carload of young men went on a joy ride, and ran a red light. Our car was in their way, and the resulting crash caused permanent damage to our whole family. Like many things in my life that at first seemed hard, cruel and impossible to accept, my physical limitations after the crash resulted in joy I would not otherwise have experienced. I was laid off work, I couldn't drive. I needed a distraction from the pain. So I went looking for answers to a question I had asked when I was twelve years old: Who Were My Ancestors?
I had no clue that the ensuing process would bring me startling moments of joy, connect me with delightful cousins, release my tears for the tragedies in our family history. Working on my family tree has taught me literally new ways to think about our history, about what is important, and even about what is a fact and how you prove it.
I began where we all must - my mother, my father, their parents; filling in facts, birth dates, marriage dates, death dates, and locations, adding brothers and sister, aunts and uncles, cousins - the beginning of my family tree. The first thing I learned was that a skeletal tree of only facts was not enough for me. I wanted more! Why did my grandmother and grandfather emigrate from Finland to America in 1912? If he was Finnish, why was his passport in Cyrillic letters - the Russian language? If my father served in the Navy in WWII, what about the picture of him in an aviators jacket and scarf outside the Quonset hut? So many questions!
I was fortunate that I still had one living grandmother, one living aunt, and two living parents who could answer many of my questions. My mother was able to show me where my great-great grandfather was buried in a little country churchyard. She went the extra mile and drove us both to a class on beginning genealogy for eight weeks. We came away with an understanding of the basics of genealogy, and some good ideas, like to start a Research Log.
Coming Next - Chapter Two: Speeding Along the Internet at 300 bauds per Minute
