Genealogy

You can do anything, but you can't do everything!

A few months back, my mom asked if I would do some research on a few members of her family.  Specifically, her grandmother and grandfather.  I said sure, thinking it would be a piece of cake.  Little did I know!

Putting a family tree together can be a lot of fun, especially these days with so many resources available online!  Obviously, I started with myself and worked my way back through the generations.

My mom's maternal grandparents easily fell into place.  Both sets of my dad's grandparents easily fell into place.  I knew their history anyway.  I've been hearing it since I was little and it all laid out pretty much as I had been told.

My father in laws family went as planned too.  I've mentioned this a few times here but in case you didn't know, my husband is related to the Kellogg's of Battle Creek.  W.K. Kellogg (who invented cornflakes) is my husband's 4th great uncle.  Pretty cool huh?  Yep, that part of my tree laid out just as I was told.  Piece of cake!

And then there are my mom's paternal grandparents.  The ones she wanted information on.  OMG!  I had no idea what I was getting myself into!  The research, the mysteries, the questions, the elusive information due to name changes, multiple marriages, the missing 1890 census...the list goes on.  All I can say at the moment is SOAP OPERA!

Although I'm little by little putting the pieces together (with quite a few surprises along the way), it's been a slow process.  I've been working between several different genealogy sites and thank goodness for newspaper archives!  I've run into quite a few brick walls but I've been breaking them down, one by one.

So why am I telling you all this?  First, because I haven't been around much lately, 2nd because I haven't had a lot of stitching to share lately and 3rd, because I've decided, with all the work I've put into this, that I'm going to put together a book about my great grandparents.

Okay, so you're probably thinking "boring"!!!  No, no, no!!!  There is nothing boring about these 2 people.  I had no idea and neither did my mom!

I think putting a book together on my great grandparents will be a really fun project and I'll share more information as I go along.   They both lived quite the interesting life!

Between doing the family research, working on the magazine and taking care of my house and cats, I haven't done too much stitching.  I did a few simple little cross stitch ornaments.  I like to stitch in the morning while I watch the news and drink coffee.

And I did get a couple of projects completely finished up:

So that's what I'm doing these days!

And while I'm here, if I have any readers from the Newark/Licking Ohio area who might be interested in answering a few questions for me, could I ask you to email me please?

Okay, I'm off to break down another brick wall!