Family Connections

In America, most of us who call ourselves Americans are really immigrants. Whether we're from some where in Europe, Asia, the Middle East or somewhere else in the world our histories are carried to this place of the immigrants. On the East Coast, Ellis Island was a door through which many families first wrote their name on the tree of this growing forest of America's new and growing family.

Many who landed new near Lady Liberty found homes within or just outside the grand city of New York, but many kept moving spreading through this expansive country we now all call home. My own history began in two areas of Europe - Sweden and Ireland, with stops to pick up relatives from Wales and the Netherlands as well of course.

Many of us know our histories, but many of us have always lived with only the knowledge of parents, grandparents and siblings but know little of those who came before us. Five years ago my mother-in-law put a yellowed wedding announcement into my hand and asked me to connect the dots for her.

I began online like many these days, but found only tantalizing bits of information - only really basic family connections but no real information. So, where does that budding genealogist turn for information and connections with those long lost ancestors? It actually began in the bowels of a local library. The smells of the old documents filled the basement space as I cranked through roll after roll of microfiche with newspapers from the period. As I began this impossible search, here I was hopeful since the bride had been born here!

My first hit on information was only a bit, but it gave a place to look for more - Washington State. For heaven sakes! I couldn't just go there, so where to begin was the question? Through the librarian there at the library I made the connection to the genealogical society in the specific area I was looking for information. After sending off a few emails and making some contacts they were going to help on some of the spots where they didn't have the information online locally yet. With that information I also began looking through what the society did have online.

After months of searching and digging through the dusty files and online I began to put together the beginnings of a history that was fascinating. This touch of research has really wet my appetite and I've really only begun the search. When will I be done? Who knows! I'm on my way to discovering connections to the old world, so I'm getting revved up for the next phase of my history treasure hunt!

For me, this is the beginnings of family connections - a connection that began long ago and connects the dots to where beginnings actually happened. What began in the late 70s with the first of the yearnings for discovering those personal histories has continued right up to today through my personal search. I love this hunt for historical pieces of my personal life picture!

What Is It Really???

What is Christmas?

Is it the presents? (Those gifts we get many of which we don't want and do not need.)
Is it the shopping, the fighting of those crowds on black Friday or any other day up to the 24th of December?

And if it isn't that, what is it?! Christmas use to be about family first (Think the best loved and most requested song from WWII, "I'll Be Home For Christmas."), and about taking time for faith and remembering. It may be an American holiday now, but it began as a religious ceremony first - Christ's Mass. Christmas.

It is NOT a holiday created by the retailers, though you certainly would think so by the way they hook us with all those things we don't need.

So at least spend the time revisiting your priorities. Family and that special closeness that comes from a shared faith and love.

Magical Memories

I've been spending some time lately remembering my Grandma Nona. Though I really have only a few memories of when I was young at home, but many of the times spent at her house on the lake are part of some of the best times from my childhood. Grammy lived on a small lake that became part of my summer dreams during the years I was growing up.

My grandmother was very special. She was small quiet women, who had a small and magical house. I can still remember the smells of old books and some of the most wonderful old black looking wood furniture. I can remember running my fingers over an old glass windowed book case with what to my young eyes seemed like thousands of books on top of more books. I would often sit in the chair beside this fantastic bookcase reading the many book titles within. I never knew those books for they weren't the kind found in the libraries I knew, but the magic of having that many books in one spot was like capturing magical animals to keep behind glass. I was a lover of books even then and loved to see so many treasures all in one place. I could just imagine exploring all over the world through my grandmother's books.

But none of the books were as much fun as listening to her stories about her childhood, for you see my grandmother grew up in a family circus in the 1800s filled with real Indians in buckskin, animals and fabulous people. I have pictures of Grammy dressed in buckskin and beaded head gear, and when she was young in one photo, and in the equivalent of tights and a leotard with a whip in her hand like a lion tamer in another.

Though she never talked about those times much when I was young, I can remember the pictures and a time when we became a part of that long ago circus through playing dress up. When my cousins and I were very small we use to dress in the Indian buckskin that by then was at least 50 years old. Soft and supple it gave off a wonderful smell of imagination and excitement as we paraded through the large closet to the mirror to view how each outfit changed the way we looked and felt.

Those years still create such good feelings today when I meander through the memories of the wonderful old house and all the "Alice in Wonderland rabbit holes" where we could escape to another life and another era. Wandering through those pictures in my memory are often the best escape from a difficult day even now. Those years were truly magical.