Fun with Geneaology

In researching my genealogy for my family medical history, I ended up looking at a lot of census records, trying to find who lived where and with whom. It's one of the best ways to get a starting point for tracking a family. I'm doing this research for a number of ancestors, and I must say that each time I find a match for a family, I'm excited.

For some reason, looking at the census records brought home some things I had learned years ago but never really thought about in depth. In particular, it made me my maternal great-grandmother, Maud, in a new light. I recall pictures of my mother as a child during the Depression, playing with her cousins and another boy she called Uncle Herbert. He was her age. Well, it turns out he really was her uncle.

After Maud gave birth to her daughter (my mother's mother), her husband either died or left her. Feisty woman that she was, she got remarried to a younger man. Then, at 44, she had another baby…right after her daughter gave birth to her first child. This might not be shocking today, but can you imagine this in the 1920s? She must have been the talk of the neighborhood! All I can think is, rock on, great-grandma!

My poor mother is no doubt shaking her head as she watches me write this from The Great Beyond. She's thinking that I never did respect the right things in her genealogical research, and perhaps she is right. She was interested in which kings and queens and conquerors we were related to. Even twenty years ago, I just wanted to know if we had PIRATES in our family tree. Poor mom. She tried to raise me right.

P.S. I'd like to point out that she said we were, in fact, related to a pirate—a female one at that. However, I now think she might have said that just to shut me up!

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