In the Beginning - Week 1 2025

 

Week 1:
This week’s theme is “In the Beginning.” (According to “The Sound of Music,” the beginning is a very good place to start.) Who was the first person you wanted to find when you started your genealogy journey? Was there a family member who sparked your interest, maybe by giving you a bunch of genealogy “stuff”? This would be a great week to write about them!

 

I have been working on my genealogy since about 1973. I had a history class in high school and did a “family tree.” I did some research, sent away for information, interviewed older members of the family and learned how to put it down on paper. It was fascinating and probably not as accurate as it could have been. My maternal grandmother was one of 12 children and my mother and I made lists of all of them, their spouses and the children. Some of them married divorced people! Some of them married three times. Almost all of them went by their middle names, so who was who? One of the boys was Francis Clare (called Clare) and one of the girls was Frances (my Great-Aunt Frances).  Their mother was Frankie Davis. I had never seen her name as anything but Frankie, but she may have been Frances. We had family albums that I poured over and tried to figure out who was who. 

My paternal grandfather was one of about 18 children. His father had married twice. One of my grandfather’s half-brothers had married a sister of his father’s second wife. The first family was all grown up and having children by the time my grandfather was born. Many had moved to New Hampshire to work in the factories there. So, he probably didn’t even know his nieces and nephews. Cy & I visited my uncle Louis in New Hampshire about 1978. I saw a picture of my great-grandfather for the first time!

During college, I took another history class at SLU. It was independent study and my goal was to do gravestone rubbings of as many of the tombstones of my ancestors as I could find. I still have that roll of paper.

Many things have changed since then, most notably the computer programs and internet availability of copious amounts of information. I invested in some of the software and by 2007 had joined ancestry.com. It was hit and miss for a while and sometimes it would be a couple of months between research sessions. I had subscribed to the basic package but found there were links to things I wanted to see that were only available if I used full-access. I added that to my subscription and tried to spend some time every day doing research.  I estimate that during that time I have spent an average 5-10 hours each week online looking at various genealogy websites. Cy bought the World package for me several years ago so I can see records from other countries. Most of my study is focused on the US and Canada.

I put together a scrapbook of photos and newspaper clippings from my family tree several years ago, made a copy for Alison and another for Kurt. I updated that info for the Barcomb family reunion in 2017.

In July 2018, I started putting together a family tree for the Bresett side of my family. Through the years, I had discussed a lot of the history with Ida so I had a good start on it. I planned to have it done in about six months. I way underestimated the amount of research and the amount of time I would be able to put toward it. I loved using historic newspapers for research but many of them were behind a pay wall. I invested the $29 to be able to see those.