Vacation and Family History in Washington, DC

My husband and I returned from our fall vacation in Washington, DC a couple of weeks ago. And I'm still processing the photos and the tidbits of family history I and a cousin discovered. It was my first time meeting my cousin in person, and it was just as if we'd known each other our entire lives.

My third great grandfather moved into the Washington, DC/Georgetown, MD area sometime between 1800 and 1810. He's found in the 1810 Georgetown, MD census. We know that he had a bakery and confectionery shop in Georgetown in 1817 thanks to a newspaper ad I found on Chronicling America.

Walking down the streets near where he had his shop in 1817 Georgetown gave me a sense of belonging. He had walked on or near the same streets, as had his son, my great great grandfather. I know that they saw a completely different view than the one I saw, but some of the buildings were there when my third great grandfather walked that area.

My poor husband knows that we'll be going back to Washington, DC and to Georgetown in a few years. I have more digging to do to uproot new records on my third great grandfather and his family. I'll continue my search for more documentation of his stay in the area, when and where he died, and where he is buried.

Happy digging!

Back to Uprooting The Family Tree

Starting a new business can take a toll on the rest of your life. Unfortunately, that can include delaying any work on the family history, or helping anyone else research their family history.

Fortunately, the business is thriving and I can once again delve into family history research. I'm so excited! I have so many questions about my ancestors, where they lived, what they did and who they were.

I'm visiting Washington, DC this fall and am so happy that my husband has agreed that I can do some family history research while we're there. Yahoo! I get four hours of concentrated research time. He's not into family history, or any history for that matter, so this is a huge gift from him to me.

My third great grandfather was a baker in the Washington, DC area between about 1810 and 1840. I found a newspaper article which gave the location of his bakery. Digging through a few old maps and a guide to the street name changes in the area and I located where his bakery used to be! I can't wait to stand in the area and take photos to share with my family. I know it won't look like it did when he was there, but I can imagine. There is just something magical about standing where you know one or more of your ancestors stood.

I have a great article from the wonderful folks at Family History Daily to share with you today. Do you have old family photos that you'd like to date or maybe even identify the people in those photos? They have a suggestion that might help you out! Read more here: http://familyhistorydaily.com/family-history/google-image-search-for-genealogy/

I'm off to uproot some more information from my family tree. Happy digging, y'all!

Happy Father's Day to my father, my grandfathers, my great-grandfathers and all the others

Happy Father's Day to all of the fathers out there! Enjoy your day - you deserve it.

This will be the twelfth Father's Day without my Dad. I still tear up at the Sears Fathers Day commercials and can't set foot in the hardware tool department between Mother's Day and Father's Day. I see so many tools and gadgets that I know my father would have loved.

My husband gets photos for Father's Day. I hope he enjoys them. I think he does.

The best gift I can give to those fathers who have gone before is to continue my family history research, continue to locate "lost" relatives and to connect with as many of my relatives as I can. As I work on the family history, I find myself wanting to pick up the phone to call my Dad to tell him that I found this tidbit of information or that I heard from that cousin. Dad would have loved to have heard my news.

He wasn't excited about uprooting the family tree at first. He thought it a bunch of hooey and told me that I if I thought I was going to find royalty or famous people in our tree, I could just stop and save myself time and energy. As I located the graves of his great grandparents and reconnected with his first cousin's son, Dad grew to appreciate family history. He saw that it wasn't just a bunch of begats and trying to find famous or infamous ancestors or relatives. Dad realized that family history is about the people, about their lives and about their legacies.

Dad was a research chemist, and he passed along many of the techniques of research to me, and I use them. I take notes. I know to verify information that others give me. I think about the whats, the whys and the hows. I make notes of where I found books, and where I found information. I got historical maps and saw how the state and county boundaries changed, and that solved some very puzzling moves by some of my ancestors.

Thank you for all that you taught me, Dad. You may have thought that you were trying to teach me in vain. I hope you see that I did listen and despite my trying not to some times, I did learn.

So, in your honor, I'm going to go and try to uproot some more ancestors on your side of the family tree. Wish me luck!