Greetings!!
I thought I would write a little about my other passion this morning. Doing my family genealogy!! I first started my family genealogy back in the mid 90s after my parents had both passed away. I always had a mild interest but it became more real after they were gone. I remember asking several times who my grandparents and ancestors were and never really got any answers. My father was a little more open about his family than my mother was. I at least had names of grandparents and knew where they had died. Both sets of grandparents had died long before I was born. I knew where mom's parents were buried as well but nothing more. I did not know her aunt and uncles names or if she had any cousins.
On my father's side the last name is not as common here in the US, Aber. My father's mother was a Conklin(g). A little more common but not too bad. But my mother's side is the nightmare from hell, LOL JK. Mom's father was a Parker and her mother was a Smith. Two extremely common names!! Grandma Annie Smith Parker came from Jersey City, NJ. Oh my gosh, try searching Smith in Jersey City!! I swear it seems like there were millions of them!! Parker in the US is not any easier to search.
Top it off, my mother seemed to have a vivid imagination. Not a single one of her "family stories" she told when I was a kid has turned out to be true!! I can't tell you whether she lied intentionally, didn't know for sure so she made things up, or was repeating things that were told to her that were not true but she thought they were, but the end result is the same, they were simply not true.
So where do I go? All my aunts and uncles are also gone now and very few cousins remain. Those remaining know less than I do about the family history. Or if they do know anything they are not saying. I got a little lucky when I found my oldest brother's baby book. It had a little family tree in it. It was not 100% accurate but it did provide some names for me to search. For example it had a Benjamin Parker as mom's grandfather. That was wrong, Benjamin turned out to be mom's great grandfather. Finding him opened up the search for finding the names of his children, one of which was my great grandfather. From there I was able to find mom's aunt and uncles.
Also in the baby book was mom's grandparents on her mother's side, the Smiths. No wait, it turns out the grandfather's first name was wrong. It was John, not Joseph. I searched for Joseph for years with no luck putting a wife named Eva with him and a daughter Annie. Then one day I was reading through old newspapers online and I stumbled across a little article that stated my grandfather had gone to Jersey City, NJ. It was the mid 1890s. So I started searching the Jersey City newspapers. After days of searching I found a small wedding announcement from 1899 that my grandfather married Annie Smith in the home of her parents, John and Eva Smith. Eureka!! I found them and now I have the correct names. I was then able to find my grandparents in the 1900 census. They lived in a 2 family house and grandma's parents were in the other apartment. Grandma's two youngest siblings were listed with her and grandpa and one other sibling was with her parents. Now I should be able to find much more.
It was slow going. Fast forward to today. I have found the names of all of grandma's siblings and found out what happened to them all except one. I am still looking for her little brother Henry. I just recently found her sister Eva. These are the two that were living with her and grandpa in the 1900 census. Needless to say there is still much searching to do.
Also recently I found the last of my great great grandfather's children. He had 8 daughters and one son. I come down from his son. I still have not been able to find out who his parents were but I have some great leads I am currently researching.
Old newspapers seem to be my best place to find information. I have found so many leads. Old news stories and obituaries are my best friends in the genealogy world, LOL. I have saved a ton of them!! I don't mind paying for the subscriptions at newspapers.com and genealogybank.com as they have been so helpful. There is a free site I also use quite a bit called fultonhistory.com. This guy has a ton of old newspapers from the north east. Especially NY state where my ancestors were primarily. It is a little hard to navigate until you get used to it but well worth it.
Along my trails down the genealogy path I have found many distant relatives and even some first cousins I never knew I had, LOL. One such "cousin" sent me a picture of my great great grandfather. Benjamin Burlin Parker. His photo is below. Benjamin was a Capt. in the Lumberland Rifle Company, in Sullivan County NY pre civil war. He did not actually serve in the civil war because his wife and one infant daughter died in 1861 and he still had other small children at home. But my great grandfather George Parker did serve. I'll write more on George another time.
Until next time,,,,,