I wonder how my grandmother felt when she first saw the Statue of Liberty

I have never been hit so hard as I was in the second episode of Who Do You Think You Are. I know from years of research that there are times when genealogy can hit a nerve and you feel guilt or sadness or fear. But on Sunday I really understood this.

My mother would tell me stories about how much fear my grandmother lived with during World War I. My mom would have been about 12 years old when this happened. People would come to my grandmother's house to check on her. I thought this was rather strange, but I never saw it as something that would scare a person. 

Then as I watched Julie Bowen research her great grandfather on WDYTYA it started to make sense. And the more I learned the more upset I became until finally I became extremely angry. I was so upset that someone could do this to my grandmother. I never met her but from hearing my mom talk about Grandma Gussie I felt like I knew her and I have always felt close to her. It is still hard to describe the emotions I feel about this time in her life. And then I think about what my mom must have gone thru being only 12 years old. My mom was extremely close to her mother.

 

It was 100 years ago. 1917. World War I. The year the United States decided to join the war. 

My grandmother, Augusta Friedricks, came to America at the age of 5 with her parents. She was born in Germany. She eventually became a citizen when her father was naturalized. She married and created a home for her husband and children. She worked as a seamstress. Then World War I broke out in Europe and her life must have completely changed.

I say "must have completely changed" because I wasn't there. I only heard the stories, but after Sunday night I can now understand the HELL she must have gone through. 

Julie Bowen discovered during her family research that her great grandfather, Charles Fry was associated with an organization called the American Protective League. These were ordinary American citizens who kept tabs on anyone in the United States who was born in Germany. My grandmother came from Prussia and this made her a possible enemy alien, a German radical. It appears that as a German born American she would have had to register during the war.

This group of German born citizens were told where the could live and work. They were spied on by fellow co-workers. Their bank accounts were inspected. Phones were tapped. In the case of Grandma Gussie, men came to her house many times and interrogated her. I remember my mom telling me how terrified she was by this. And many were placed in camps where they lived until the end of the war. In 1919 after the war around 10,000 aliens were released from these camps. 

The citizens who belonged to this group thought they were doing their part to protect America. I suppose you could buy into this if you never knew of a grandparent who was subjected to this horrible treatment. I find it hard to believe that this could happen in this country. Or do I?

I wonder how my grandmother and her parents felt when they saw the Statue of Liberty for the very first time.  

 

 

What if . . . . . . .?

This past week my family had to deal with a lot of "what ifs". My grandson came into this world with his angel wings on January 5. Each of us have had moments when we asked ourselves, each other and the hospital staff "what if we/I had done this or that"? The answer was always the same -- It wouldn't have changed things. Really?

I got to thinking about this "text book" answer that I assume is supposed to make you feel better and, of course, the genealogy lobe of my brain took over. Not only could I see that it might not really be true, but it gave me a whole new research concept.

What If. . . . . . . . . .? 

As I sat all alone in my living room I thought about what had just happened and I slowly realized that there was a time when the end result of pregnancy was not a given. Mothers died. Babies died. Mothers appeared and disappeared in the census records. Other women took their place and then they were gone. Widowers married sister-in-laws and widows just to be able to to maintain the household and take care of the surviving children. Yes, surviving! Birth was not a free ticket to adulthood.

And then it dawned on me. What if my sister would not have been stillborn. I am sure my life would have been a lot different. I would not be an only child. I would have nieces and nephews. Or maybe I wouldn't even be here at all.

What if my grandmother would not have immigrated from Germany. None of us would be here. What if they would not have left Russia? Let's not go there.

What if my grandmother would not have fallen out of the hayloft, suffered a miscarriage and died that afternoon? My dad might have stayed in Clermont County and never would have met my mom. 

What if. . . . . . .?

So how does this become a genealogy tool? Well! Let's think about those brick walls. What if there was a "what if"? What if this had not happened where would my ancestor be? What if something happened that created a fork in the road? Maybe you took the wrong fork in your research. Maybe you didn't know there was another fork. 

What if there was a war? What if your ancestor was looking for religious freedom? What if there was no way across that mountain? What if there was gold in California? What if your ancestor killed someone and headed west to disappear? What if your ancestor had to return to the Old Country to take care of family members? What if your ancestor just went on vacation for a few years!?

"What ifs" create detours in genealogy research. Maybe you missed that right turn. Think about what was going on that might have created a "what if". Look at your genealogy problem from a different angle.

Unfortunately  in our case we have already experienced the "what if" and no amount of wishful thinking will bring our littlest angel back. The "what ifs" have already happened and that chapter in our family tree has been written.

 

Plan a Road Trip!!

My Aunt Daisy made sure that her family knew the importance of family history. When I was a little girl I looked at my aunt as someone who had been alive forever and personally knew all of her ancestors. She had an attic and a barn full of really neat stuff and it all belonged to my ancestors.

The greatest thing about my aunt was that she took time to make sure that all of her family knew the story of their ancestors. She didn't just do a lot of research and pass it on to whoever wanted to read it. No! She made sure that everyone in her family wanted to absorb it. And treasure it. And make it a part of their lives. And they did.

She did not worry about what repository she was going to donate her research to when she passed away. She knew that she had laid the foundation of genealogy within her family and it would carry on from there. Granted some of the larger items in the attic and barn went to museums, but the smaller items were distributed among the family members. And because they knew their family history, these pieces of jewelry, silverware, linens, dinnerware had meaning for the person who now was allowed the privilege of owning them. It was a privilege for me to own a pin from the Civil War era that belonged to my great, great grandmother. I knew who she was. She had sons who fought for the Union in the Civil War. But she was born in Kentucky and also had family in the Confederacy.

So how do you keep your research from being stored in the stacks of a local library? You show your family their roots.

Last week my granddaughter and I visited Germany. We never left my kitchen. We did it all online. Who's idea was it? It was Chrisi's. She asked me what Tennessee was like and I told her to just "Google" Nashville. After she took a tour of Nashville, she decided that since she has strong German roots on both sides of her family, she wanted to see Germany. So we did. Online!

Of course, Chrisi has already been exposed to her roots in Kentucky and southern Ohio. She and her older sister, Tabi, have "walked the ground" where their ancestors have walked. They have stood on the banks of the Ohio River. The river their ancestors crossed when they left Kentucky and came to Ohio.

I am seeing so many lectures lately about "what to do with your research". Let's quit worrying about that and get those grandkids, nieces and nephews out there in those cemeteries, at those old homesteads, in the small towns, on the banks of the rivers where our ancestors "wrote" our family stories. 

Summer is almost here. School is almost out. Plan a road trip with the kids!!