Well - he thought he'd do a great gift-giving job and spend close to $70 on a kit from 23AndMe (can you hear my sarcasm?) because the "DNA testing" revealed basically what I found for free on this FamilySearch website: that I'm 58.8% British/Irish, 10% Scandanavian, and the rest a general mix of European....
ANYWAYS.
So I've been working more on entering family tree information onto FamilySearch.org (after our great family reunion in California - 340+ people on the tree, more than HALF who showed up for the three-day get-together!)
I've been working off of a .pdf format of that GIANT family tree for entering information, and a little more than halfway through, wondered/realized - I hadn't seen any stillbirths or miscarriages marked - did family members just brush them aside and ignore them for the family tree?
As I wondered, I came across the first one:
[JOHN JACOB JINGLEHEIM.] was born on 13 Oct 2001 in San Antonio, TX. He died on 13 Oct 2001 in San Antonio, TX.
That family's next baby? A little girl named [FirstName] FAITH [LastName], and was born 27 Aug 2002 - barely 10 months after their first baby boy...
Just two families later (out of 100's) - again a first born son:
[JackSprat] was born on 11 Apr 2003 in Washington, D.C. He died on 04 May 2003.
Less than a month old... But another boy, and a girl that followed in 2 year increments..
AGAIN - just two or three families later:
[JohnSmith] was born on 04 Aug 2002 in Reno, Nevada. He died on 04 Aug 2002.
And the parents - married in 2000, baby born - and died - in 2002, divorced by 2004...
Just numbers, dates and names - yet so much story in the facts....
I still am moved every time I read the little blurb anchored on the left side of this page, and the last family (I still have 3 more pages of the family tree....) made me think of it...
Married: April 2000
Baby Born, and Died: Aug 2002
Love Story Ends: Dec 2004
Hi Kate. I have been doing genealogy since I was 13. I started up my tree with a paid subscription and kits for the family to Ancestry a few months back. When I lived in Germany back in the 1990's I used to do a lot of research there. Mostly leg work as there weren't a lot of records on the web to search compared to the number now. Genweb was still in its infancy along with Cindi's List Rootsweb and so on. But yes I can track my family way back on some sides and on other sides I swear it is like beating my head against a brick wall...like with my husband's family since with all those wars going on in the Serbian areas. Documents do get lost. Wish you luck. Email me if you want extra help. I've been doing this for 35 years I might be able to send you in another search direction.
ReplyDeletethanks Rebecca!!! it's been fun and interesting learning about the family tree - I've yet to even explore my husband's side (nearly 100% Italian, and only two generations in the U.S. versus my side which have been in the U.S. for DECADES upon decades...)
DeleteI'll let you know if I'm ever interested in help! Thanks!