long time-no-find
Wow....I can't believe there is a year in between...Where in the world have I been?
Update.....I found someone?
I had the good fortune to go to Kentucky with my sheep in November.
I have also the good fortune that some distant cousin was interested enough in old family papers to save and donate a few old letters to the Kentucky Historical Society.
Leaving my sheep in Louisville for a day or two, I went to a lovely museum in Maysville Kentucky. I expected to find the letters there, and had called ahead to make sure I would be able to see them. I found much more. The museum had a lovely reading room, with stacks of history books...files of microfilms....and helpful staff. Yes, I yelled questions across the library. I copied everything I could get my hands on....and I even found my ancestors had lived in a small town within an hours drive. I found court records, wills, inventories, and new friends.
Lucky me, I took a couple of hours and drove to the town. Trying to find a cemetery. Why are cemeteries so important? I know distant cousins who yell at gravesites...."Stand up and tell me who you are." My mother was very into cemeteries. We had a round of family cemeteries. One in Wisconsin was a full days travel.....we went every year while she could walk. This old cemetery was abandoned decades ago. Some graves had been moved. Some were never marked. We liked to go there the week before memorial day. Sometimes we met someone carefully cutting the grass for the big day. One year we met a distant cousin who came driving in....just on a whim...and met her cousins. What a surprise.
I didn't find the right cemetery on my day in Kentucky this year. I met some lovely folks...even older than I am....who remembered some of my family. I saw an old church. I did feel an incredible sense of sadness. As if the spirits left in kentucky sensed my relation to one long gone. My gr-gr-gr grandfather wrote home. With every letter he promised to come back soon, he died young....never seeing his home and family again. There was a feeling of belonging. It is still wild land, similar perhaps to the ozarks where I live now. I hope I will have the good fortune to go back. In the meantime, I search for more information on the generations of Perkins who I was lucky to connect to my own family.
What can we learn from my bonanza? Keep looking. Unless we try, the information we need will stay hidden. There is much to be learned from a trip to the area...to the courthouse...to the historical society or the geneological society.
This was one line out of several families I have been trying to find for 25 years. At least we now know more about this line of ancestors.
Good luck hunting.
Update.....I found someone?
I had the good fortune to go to Kentucky with my sheep in November.
I have also the good fortune that some distant cousin was interested enough in old family papers to save and donate a few old letters to the Kentucky Historical Society.
Leaving my sheep in Louisville for a day or two, I went to a lovely museum in Maysville Kentucky. I expected to find the letters there, and had called ahead to make sure I would be able to see them. I found much more. The museum had a lovely reading room, with stacks of history books...files of microfilms....and helpful staff. Yes, I yelled questions across the library. I copied everything I could get my hands on....and I even found my ancestors had lived in a small town within an hours drive. I found court records, wills, inventories, and new friends.
Lucky me, I took a couple of hours and drove to the town. Trying to find a cemetery. Why are cemeteries so important? I know distant cousins who yell at gravesites...."Stand up and tell me who you are." My mother was very into cemeteries. We had a round of family cemeteries. One in Wisconsin was a full days travel.....we went every year while she could walk. This old cemetery was abandoned decades ago. Some graves had been moved. Some were never marked. We liked to go there the week before memorial day. Sometimes we met someone carefully cutting the grass for the big day. One year we met a distant cousin who came driving in....just on a whim...and met her cousins. What a surprise.
I didn't find the right cemetery on my day in Kentucky this year. I met some lovely folks...even older than I am....who remembered some of my family. I saw an old church. I did feel an incredible sense of sadness. As if the spirits left in kentucky sensed my relation to one long gone. My gr-gr-gr grandfather wrote home. With every letter he promised to come back soon, he died young....never seeing his home and family again. There was a feeling of belonging. It is still wild land, similar perhaps to the ozarks where I live now. I hope I will have the good fortune to go back. In the meantime, I search for more information on the generations of Perkins who I was lucky to connect to my own family.
What can we learn from my bonanza? Keep looking. Unless we try, the information we need will stay hidden. There is much to be learned from a trip to the area...to the courthouse...to the historical society or the geneological society.
This was one line out of several families I have been trying to find for 25 years. At least we now know more about this line of ancestors.
Good luck hunting.
posted by bopeep | 9:12 AM
1 Comments:
What a great story! Congrats on the big pay-off - especially after hunting for 25 years! Isn't it amazing how the lands of our ancestors seep into our bones while we are visiting, making the parting so strangely difficult/painful?
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