Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

A marital mystery

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I have a little mystery I look forward to solving (somehow). My paternal great grandparents (my father’s father’s parents) were married in 1893, when my great grandmother, Hattie, was 18 (a month shy of 19) and my great grandfather, Elmer, was 21. They were living together in the 1900, 1910, and 1920 censuses. (I noticed on the 1910 census that Hattie had had six children, but only four survived.)

In the 1930 census, however, I found Hattie, but she wasn’t living with Elmer. Instead, she’s listed as a landlady of a boarding house in Olympia, Washington, the state capital. And she’s still at the same home (with 9 boarders) in 1940. But she is listed as married.

Where’s Elmer? My father says they split (though apparently they didn’t divorce…Hattie is listed as having another source of income in 1940…was Elmer supporting her?). My dad said it really wasn’t discussed much, though my father was in his 13 when Elmer died and in his 20s when Hattie died.

So I want to find Elmer on the 1930 and 1940 censuses. And when I’m visiting her in August, perhaps I’ll pump my aunt (my father’s sister) for information on her grandparents. Maybe it was discussed more around her. So far, I’m hitting a wall.

A peek into social history

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One of the things I love about family history research is that even census records can give you a little peek into the lives of people who lived before us. The fact that these people are related to us makes it even more interesting.

For example, I found my paternal grandmother, Beatrix Rasco, on the 1920 census. She was living in Plainview. Texas. with her family, on a farm. She was 13 years old and in school. She could read and write. In my experience, when a student is listed on the census, the occupation field is left blank or the word None is entered. In my grandmother’s case, her occupation was Farmer. Her little brother, Wilson, who at 7 was not in school, could not read or write and his occupation was listed as Farmer. (Their father was a farmer, as was their big sister, Lessie, who was 18 at the time. Their mother had no occupation listed.)

When I was 13 I think I babysat for some money, but my biggest worry, besides boys, was making sure I was able to watch Happy Days on Tuesday evenings. It’s hard for me to imagine life as a teenage girl farmer. Or a little boy who worked a farm but didn’t go to school and couldn’t read. (Though, to be fair, I don’t know at what age most kids started school back then. I’ll have to look into that.)

Kids today would probably consider my childhood deprived, since we had no computers, VCRs, cell phones (smart or otherwise) or, of course, internet. But by comparison to my grandmother’s childhood, it seems like I was living in the lap of luxury.

I can’t wait to have more glimpses of the past via my family history research!

Census connections

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The 1940 census is out and, thanks to my mother’s good memory, I was able to find her on the 1940 census. She was born in 1933, so this is obviously the first census I read her name in. Such a thrill!

I noted that, according to the census, my mother’s brother, Joe, was born in Georgia. This was a big question mark for me, because I’d never, ever heard talk of my family living in Georgia. I figured I’d ask my mother about it next time I see her.

I posted a link to the census page on my personal Facebook page and my first cousin, Joe’s daughter, Janis, commented. That allowed me to ask her about the Georgia connection and she told me that our grandparents had lived there the year after they were married (they were married in 1930) and that my grandfather was a door-to-door lingerie salesman!! I’d never heard that before, but apparently my grandmother told Janis stories of living in Georgia.

I went back to the 1930 census and saw that at the time of the enumeration (April 1930) my grandfather was living with his parents and was listed as a “Commercial Traveler” for an adding machine company. I have a copy of his marriage license application, just a month later. So some time in 1930 (Joe was born in 1931), my grandfather went from selling adding machines in Missouri to selling lingerie in Georgia. I wonder how that happened?

By 1933 when my mother was born, my family moved back to Missouri. I’m going to see if I can get the story from my mother. This is such a springboard for conversation.

I love the connections the census allows us to make about our family members’ lives. I also love that posting about the 1940 census allowed me to make that connection with my cousin, who had this knowledge about our family that I’d previously known nothing about. And, of course, I love that Facebook is helping me make these connections.

Yet another reason I love family history research!

I’m torn: facts or narrative

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As I contemplate the immediate direction I want my family history research to take, I’m torn. Part of me wants to start by verifying all the facts I’ve seen online by finding primary documents or other documents I can use for verification. But the other part of me wants to know the stories. I want to try to get to know these ancestors and figure out how they lived.

I’ve been led to believe that some of my ancestors crossed the Atlantic ocean on the Mayflower. Others lived in the wilds of Kentucky and hung out with Daniel Boone. Another helped settle New Amsterdam. This is interesting stuff. I want to learn more about it and perhaps write about it.

But that feels like putting the cart before the horse. Sure I can get the thrill of learning how my ancestors lived, but if I don’t verify the data, will I know they’re really my ancestors? Does that really matter?

I’ve decided that the right thing for me to do is to work on verifying data, via primary sources and census records. I like the investigative nature of tracking down documents. And I do care that the stories that I’ll eventually be learning about are truly for my ancestors.

In a way, though, I can do both. I don’t have to verify every ancestor before starting to learn the rich facts about the lives of ancestors I do verify. It’s starting to feel clearer. I’ll start researching the most recent generations, verifying facts and when I’ve worked my way back to someone particularly interesting, I can stop and start digging into their story, if I want.

Ah, that feels like a good plan.