It’s Saturday Night –
time for more Genealogy Fun!
Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music here) is to:
1) I found this on Facebook:
I was very lucky to know both of my grandmothers! The one thing I remember most about BOTH of my grandmothers is their love of family, both immediate family and extended family.
One vivid memory I have from visiting my mom’s mother, Pauline (Mentzer) Briles, was sitting on her couch and going thru her photo album. It was thru this time on the couch that I learned about her twin brother and other siblings. Grandma would talk about family members that I had never met but thru sharing the photos she would also share her memories. As a young child, it was hard to understand that I had a first cousin, David, whom grandma hadn’t seen since before my birth. Grandma would talk lovingly about David but her words also conveyed sadness. When I started researching my family history, it was grandma Briles who helped me begin my Mentzer and Briles research.
While grandma Briles helped me begin researching my mom’s side of the tree, it was my grandma Crawford (Winnie Currey Crawford) who started me on this family history journey. As a child, I knew that my grandmother had a strong bond not only with her siblings but with my grandfather’s siblings. It wasn’t until learning about her childhood that I understood why she strived to maintain those connections. My grandmother’s family was torn apart when her mother died. While her older brother went to work, she and her older two sisters spent time in a children’s home and her two younger siblings were ‘adopted’ out. Even though the family was torn apart while the children were young, they were able to reconnect as adults.
Since she lost her mother at the age of 10, she also lost out on hearing about her mom’s family. Not only did grandma miss out on the stories, but her mother’s parents had died before my grandmother was born. Thus, grandma did not know a lot about her mom’s family. It was this desire to know about her grandparents that started my genealogy journey.
Like you, both of my grandmothers shared family stories that spurred my family history research.My maternal grandmother told me about her Danish mother’s family and even knew my grandfather’s grandfather. My paternal grandmother knew all four of her grandparents, including maiden names, which meant, right at the start, I knew five of my 2X great grandparents. I feel very lucky that both shared their knowledge with me.