Turtle Lady Genealogy: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 51 Prompt

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 51

Prompt – Nice

Peters Family Gathering With Cousins, Cousin in Laws, Grandma and our Boarder

If I heard it once, I must of heard it hundreds of times. It would be nice if my mom or dad or grandparent (insert relative) were still alive; I would ask them....

I'm no different than anyone else. I started to fill out the family tree.

Vivian and Jake Peters 1975 Christmas

I started with what I thought I knew. It started with my mother's name. It wasn't Vivian as she was known but legally Lydia Vivian. But what was her legal last name? After digging a bit I discovered she was really Sullivan because her step father. Ben McLaughlin had not adopted her as he had for mom's brother, Wally. I added my father as Jake on the family tree but on his birth certificate he is registered as Jacob Peters and no middle name. I also discovered that he was known as Jack at Olympic where he worked. He apparently never corrected them. Finding out the legal name is easy if you have their important legal papers such as birth certificates, baptismal papers, marriage licenses and death certificates. However I have always wanted to know more than dates for birth, marriage and death. That would make a very dry family tree.

I think the reason I and so many other genealogists think it would be nice to see them is to flesh out the stories that we are picking up in shreds from our work on their dry statistics. In the examples above, I show that something as easy as adding parents to a family tree can be tricky. Growing up I only knew my father as Jake and my mother as Viv or Vivian. The discrepancies came when I used legal documents to prove that I had the correct names on my tree. In mom's case of her last name it was a bit trickier because some documents list her last name as McLaughlin even though she was never adopted like her brother by grandmother's second husband. And that right there would be a great story to ask her about. However when she was alive I didn't know these discrepancies and therefor had nothing to ask her about. I will surmise also that as a teenager or young adult, the story probably did not interest me as it would today.

These would not be easy questions to ask because some of them would be deeply personal to them. But there are ways to get them to talk about them. If only grandmother McLaughlin / Sullivan were alive I would ask her to tell me her story about her first husband and why she almost completely erased him from her life.

And these were only the first 3 names I added on the tree! I imagine that there are hundreds more untold stories in my tree that will beg the comment – wouldn't it be nice if they were still alive, then I could ask them more about their story.

The moral of this story is that it would be nice to have them around and listen to their stories when we are finally ready to listen. Unfortunately they won't live forever and thus I urge you to be curious and ask the questions this Christmas when your family gather together. Also don't forget to write them down!