Brrr

I don't know about you but here in Northwest Ohio, this weather has been a test for all of us. How to stay warm. How to keep pipes from freezing. Keep the cars running so we can pick up our cabin fever click list from Kroger. Decide if we need to tip the pizza delivery person a few dollars more because he is standing on our front porch in a -40 wind chill. Should we venture outside of our house to see if there is still an outside of our house. It's been difficult. Stressful. Slightly chilly. And this is the third day school has been cancelled.

It doesn't get much worse.

I was on my way home from a Click List Run today when I started thinking about my ancestors who lived in the Great Black Swamp in northern Ohio. Back in the day! Honestly, I have to admit that the first thought that went thru my mind was -"They must have loved this kind of weather. Everything was frozen. There was no mud and muck to sink into. It was like solid ice.They could go anywhere they wanted to go. In a hurry. Like I-75! At 2mph.


I pictured them in a small cabin with a fireplace blazing with warmth. Comfy and cozy, reading, knitting, mending, quilting. I am sure they made sure that their neighbors were safe and secure on this cold winter night. Their animals were sheltered and safe. Life was good in their world. Tomorrow would be a new day and they would face it with strength and determination. They never expected it to be easy.

Just a thought: During these days of freezing temperatures when you feel like your life is so inconvenient and you just want to hop on a plane and go to the Keys, take time to think of your ancestors who made your life possible and what they went thru to make it happen.

I am sure they did not have an Early American Click List!

To my great grandaughter - The glass ceiling has been broken; the sky is the limit!

On June 24, I became a great-grandmother. I felt so lucky and so blessed that I was able to see the beginning of a new generation in my family. It was a rather strange feeling. It felt like a new beginning in my life and I couldn't stop smiling. As a mother in labor, you pray to see your child born. At that moment when you see your child, you see the next generation but you don't think about that. 

You don't think about generations to come, even if you are a genealogist.

And it takes years before you start to think about the possibility of grandchildren. Some moms don't want that day to come. They will be perceived as old. Some can't wait, regardless of their age. And there are ways to get around the problem of being called grandmother. You can make up a name like nana, mawma, and a hundred other things I have heard. But when the fog of birth disappears you are still grandma.

It is crazy but I don't have any friends who object to being called great-grandmother. It is like a badge of honor. 

A few days after my great-granddaughter was born I was getting ready to meet up with friends at a local Mexican restaurant. I caught my reflection in the mirror. I sure didn't look like a great grandmother. As I drove down Crissy Road on my way to Loma Lindas I thought about my own great grandmothers. Should I look like them? No way! And then I started thinking about all the differences between all of us.

All of my great grandmothers wore long skirts. The had long hair. And they were all different. One was a pioneer in the Great Black Swamp. Another immigrated from Prussia. Yet another was an abolitionist and had three sons who made it home from the Civil War. The last died young and never got to see her young children live to adulthood, let alone see her own grandchildren.

And here I was off to celebrate with the girls (other grandmothers) at the local Mexican Restaurant. No horse and buggy. No restrictions. No one looking down their noses at us. 

If we wanted to we could party like it is 1999. I doubt that Grandma Perkins or Grandma Rochte could have partied like it was 1899. Although from what i have heard Grandma Rochte might have tried. She was a neat lady. 

My great grandmothers did not have the right to vote. But my great granddaughter has the right to be President of the United States of America.

End of discussion.  

 

Genealogy is the never ending story with never ending records!

Genealogical research never gets to a point where you can say,"And they lived happily every after."  That only happens in fairy tales. In the real world life goes on. And on, and on, and  on! And records are created over and over and over. 

Do you really think that our ancestors had us in mind when they created the records we use today to find them? No, of course not. Do you think that that they  ever imagined that we would come looking for them? Did they care? Probably not. They were  too busy trying to stay alive. By staying alive I mean providing a safe place of shelter for themselves and their children. And occasionally in the process, they created records.  

Have you ever wondered if you could have survived in the world of our early ancestors? Could you set out for the unknown with just the possessions that would fit into a covered wagon. Travel through dense forests and mountain terrain? And in the case of northwest Ohio, through the Great Black Swamp. I can honestly say I don't think I would last a day! And I would have created very few records!

One branch of my family tree crossed the Ohio River shortly after the Treaty of Greenville was signed in 1795. At first they lived on the river bank and later moved inland to where the town of Amelia now sits in Clermont County, Ohio.

Within a few years my 3X great grandfather was killed by a falling tree leaving his widow and his young children to survive. As a result land, death, church and guardianship records were created. And a will was recorded.

When you read the history of that area one thing that stands out is the number of people who didn't survive. A birth record could, and many times did, create other records. And once again survival was involved. Many women did not survive childbirth. A death record of some sort was created. The child may have also died creating another record. Eventually most men remarried. Another record! The family would change on the next census with people missing and people added.

When a family moved to a new frontier, land records and tax records were created. The location of census records changed. Children were born and grew up creating school records and eventually marriage records. And the cycle of life's records  moved on. 

Day to day living on the frontier was a matter of survival. The husband left the homestead in search of wild game. Would he return? And when he returned would his family still be there to welcome him home? Wild animals, Indians, weather, highwaymen affected the lives of the early pioneers. And more records were created. 

Since these records were not created by our ancestors as a genealogy research source for their descendants, what was the purpose? Who really cared? The government! The government wasn't nosy. It just needed to count, tax, and represent our ancestors. There are reasons for all those little boxes on the census forms. The fact that these records are great sources of information for genealogists is purely coincidental. Every minute of everyday new records are created.

I have seen this statement many times - "When looking at a record you need to know why the record was created." I suppose that could be true. I prefer to look at an ancestor's life and ask "What records could they have created because of what was happening to them?" Be a detective. Look for the clues. The clues are the records that your ancestor might have created.

 

 

 

Kalahari is huge and I am exhausted. I was all packed and ready to check out this morning. Then  I got my bill and, you guessed it . . . the other Sandy! Check out time was 11am and I was planning on squeezing one more session in before I had to leave. Instead I spent that time in the lobby straightening out my bill. By the way if you stayed at the resort, you should check your bill to make sure they waved the resort fee. They will remove the fee if you were charged.

The conference runs til 4pm today. With check out time at 11am, I wonder how many people are going to leave early. Yesterday afternoon the halls were filled with families checking in for the weekend. This morning buses were arriving packed with teenagers headed for the prom. The peace and quiet of the last few days was gone and the genealogists retreated to the safety of the conference center.  I had to make one more sweep of the exhibit hall and distribute the last of my raffle tickets. Then  I said "goodbye to Kalahari" and vowed to return again someday.

This is my only conference for this year. I envy those of you who are getting ready to attend the NGS Conference in Richmond, Virginia. I have ancestors who lived in that area back in the 1700's and it would have been wonderful to walk the land they walked on. 

While I was in the exhibit hall yesterday I picked up a book, An In-Depth Guide to Richmond, Virginia by Shannon Combs-Bennett. It is a great book for anyone going to the NGS Conference or planning on doing research in the Richmond area at a later date. It contains information about downtown, safety, transportation, shopping, and nearby attractions. For more information: 

http://theindepthgenealogist.com/product/an-in-depth-guide-to-richmond-virginia-pdf/

So what did I learn at the OGS 2014 Conference? 
*I definitely need to start using Evernote. Also learned that Thomas MacEntee is extremely funny.
*Playing live Clue with a bunch of genealogists can be fun and confusing. Sort of like family research.
*The ague of the early days of the Great Black Swamp was actually malaria.
*It is easy to hit over 6,000 steps on your fitbit in one day at a genealogy conference. Also learned it is not easy to get out of bed the next day!
*But most important, genealogists are some of the friendliest people in the world. We relate!