Tracing Your Roots

Time is a precious commodity. It goes all too quickly. For me, it is hard to believe that I'm in my 6th decade....it just seems like only a few years ago I was in high school, and then college. I remember my 21st birthday like it was yesterday, well, maybe not yesterday, but it sure doesn't seem like it was over 40 years ago!

Several years ago, just after I left Boeing (I retired at 58 in 2002), I decided to see if I could trace my family lines. I knew a little about my dad's side of the family, even less about my mom's. I came late in life. My dad was 45 and my mom 36 when I was born.

All but one of my grand parents were dead. Only my father's mother was alive. I was born in California, the state my parents had moved to in the 1920's....can you imagine....they were here before oil was discovered in Signal Hill (a small town within the city of Long Beach).

Signal Hill got it's name from the Indians who made fires and signals by holding blankets over the fire's smoke to communicate to each other before the telegraph, and yes, telephones, or cell phones to the kids.

My dad had moved from Oklahoma to California. I thought he was born there. My research indicated that he was born in Iowa. My mom came to California from Maine. The mid west and the east coast were my origins, or so I thought.

My family was not one to talk too much about our background or history. I'm guessing that's because my dad was working long hours at his job, and my mother was taking care of raising us and seeing to keeping the house in order. Back then, there wasn't a lot of conveniences in the home. My mother did not have a dryer. All the washed clothes were lined dried by the sun. There was no microwave oven. Even though we had a refrigerator when I got older, my parents both still called it an "icebox". We had a black and white TV until I was a senior in high school. No cable. TV reception was by antenna. Lots of "ghosts", or multiple images, poor reception or picture quality. No power tools like a mower, edger, or weed wacker to help with the lawn and garden.

For some reason, I decided to try and find something out about my family and the relatives of my parents. My dad died young, at 68. I was still in college. While I was not an expert on the Internet, I managed to search through the different sites and come up with a lot of "free" information. What I found out was purely through my searches, and contacting people (some who turned out to be unknown relatives) via the email addresses I came across.

Not all my contacts proved to be valid, and some were even unfriendly. Believe it or not, not everyone wants to have the past uncovered. There are "skeletons" in every one's closet. Remember, not until recently have people been willing to discuss a lot of topics. Much of the past remained buried or "swept under the rug" in a lot of families.

I won't bore you here with all the details, but I'll provide you with a few links that you can look at (no cost) and see a little about your ancestors. If you are Internet active and have a little time on your hands, you can perhaps find something out about your history, and some of your relatives who walked this planet many, many years before you. Here are the links:

The oldest and largest FREE genealogy site http://www.rootsweb.com/

FREE genealogy Search Engines http://www.ancestorhunt.com/

As for me, I was able to establish I was not of Indian ancestry on my mother's side, but that we did come from England several centuries ago. Actually I believe that one of my ancestors was on the Mayflower that came from England in the 1620's. I also found out that my mom's dad (my maternal grandfather) had two brothers I did not know of. Both of my grand dad's parents died relatively young within the same year or two (during the 1870's) and all of the children were farmed out to other families. My grand dad was raised by a Handy (my mom's maiden name), but his two brothers went to other families carrying another last name. They sort of got lost in the system, and it wasn't until I started my looking that I uncovered it. I have a great niece (her great grandfather was one of my grand dad's brothers) living in Maine.

On my dad's side, I found he was born in Iowa. I found a census on the Internet that showed my paternal grand mother living close to my dad's father in Dubuque, Iowa with a variation of her maiden name. Further research showed she came from Wisconsin. I uncovered brothers and sisters of my grand parents on my dad's side, and have managed to trace some of them to present times. While I've never met any of my "new" relatives in person, we've made contact via emails and keep in touch, sharing holidays, photos, and special events.

If you have any desire to trace your roots, there is a lot of information available for you to research and digest. I've started a family tree. On my mom's side, I think I can go back to about 900AD! That's over a 1100 years, and many, many generations....just think of it!