To be the family historian in a clan is an honored role. But to fulfill it effectively, you must include all stories–including your own. So here’s a prompt and a story to get you started: What led you to become a genealogist?
“Your stories are the family history of your descendants,” is something you’ve heard me say on the Genealogy Gems Podcast. In her first article here at Genealogy Gems, I’ve asked genealogist Margaret Linford to share one of her own stories with you: how she came to be a genealogist. I’m anxious for you to get to know Margaret because she has some wonderful gems in store for you in the months ahead. Grab your favorite cup of tea and enjoy!” -Lisa Louise Cooke
What Made Me a Genealogist?
Grandma Overbay in 1974 with baby Margaret. Photos courtesy of Margaret Linford.
I can remember, as a little girl, walking in after school. The aroma of freshly baked biscuits or bread always filled the air and enveloped anyone who walked through the door. The house was spotless. The bed linens were crisp.
This was the home of my Grandma Overbay. She was completely devoted to her family. Her home was a refuge for many when they found themselves struggling through life. No one was turned away and she made sure that those who entered her house always felt welcome.
My answer to the question, “What made me a genealogist?” can be traced back to this one woman and my countless experiences with her.
The Greatest Gift
I can remember many lazy summer evenings on the porch, listening to stories of her childhood, accompanied by the rhythmic sound of crickets. Through Grandma’s stories, I was transported back in time. In my mind’s eye, I could see her as a little girl picking blackberries on a mountaintop and following the local doctor from house to house as he treated patients. She lived in a small community, where it was a common practice, in that time, for doctors to make house calls. She had an insatiable curiosity, which prompted these tag-along visits. I imagine it was on these “house calls” that she came to love hearing stories. I loved being able to envision her as a carefree young girl, being taught life lessons, as she served as an unofficial intern to this kind community doctor.
A younger version of Grandma Overbay
She painted pictures on the canvas of my mind and introduced me to my ancestors. With each story she told, she was “downloading” some of her memories into the brains of her children and grandchildren. This was one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever given me: the gift of her time and her stories.
“With each story she told, she was ‘downloading’ some of her memories into the brains of her children and grandchildren. This was one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever given me: the gift of her time and her stories.”
I don’t think my grandma realized how important her stories would be to creating a strong family narrative. But her legacy lives on, thanks to the time she invested in a budding family genealogist.
The Master Storyteller
I feel fortunate to have been the granddaughter of this master storyteller. She created characters and made my ancestors come to life. They had traveled the path of life that I was just beginning, and had much wisdom to pass down to me. My grandma was deliberate in her attempts to transmit this wisdom.
Life lessons were always embedded within the stories. She often told a story that was related to her by her father. He had elected to disregard some of his mother’s wise counsel with regard to a person he wanted to date. He later learned that his mother truly knew what was best and he could have been spared an agonizing experience if he had chosen to heed her counsel. This theme of “honoring father and mother” was woven into many of her stories.
I learned from her that everyone has something to teach us–if we choose to take time and listen to the people we encounter on a day-to-day basis. Grandma believed in devoting her full attention to people. She would stop everything she was doing to lend an ear to someone who needed to talk. In these moments, she was offering her friendship and genuine concern. She was a listener, always sifting through the seemingly mundane to discover bits of wisdom and life lessons she otherwise may not have learned. She taught me, in word and by example, that life can be enriched as we take time to hear each other’s stories.
Pearls of Wisdom
Margaret Poston Overbay in the early 1970s
Through the successes and disappointments of my ancestors, they left their children and grandchildren pearls of wisdom. These pearls are strung together, as we remember stories of the past. The greatest “heirloom” I ever inherited was this “string of pearls,” given to me one story at a time.
Six years ago, when I was asked to begin writing a bi-weekly column for my hometown newspaper, this heirloom is what prompted me to christen it “String of Pearls.” There is an even deeper meaning tucked into the name for me. I share the name “Margaret” with my grandmother and great-grandmother. I grew up often resenting being given such an “old” name. As I have matured, I have come to love it. To my delight, I have found that the name, which means “pearl,” has been used for many generations in my family. I am but one in a long string of “pearls.”
There are people like my grandma within each family. They are the keepers of the family stories. They seem to have a special calling to pass along the wisdom and knowledge of previous generations. There is an old proverb that says, “You live as long as you are remembered.” We are remembered as long as our stories are told, and it starts with you telling your story.
Questions Worth Asking
What is it that ignites the spark within someone’s heart to possess a love of family history, to take their rightful place as the “keeper” of the stories? What motivates certain individuals to be so dedicated to searching out their ancestors? What made my Grandma so intent on transmitting these family stories to future generations? I never had the opportunity to ask her that question. I had no way of knowing that her presence would be snatched away so soon. I often find myself repeating the phrase, “if I had only asked.” Perhaps you have, upon occasion, had the same thought with regard to your own family members.
Though we may have some regrets about unanswered questions, it’s never too late for us, as family historians, to start answering these questions ourselves. What inspired you to delve into your family’s history? Was it a grandparent, a photograph, or a family mystery that you wanted to solve? What prompted you to first seek out your ancestors?
As I answered these questions for myself, I was reminded of the emotional connection to my Grandma. A flood of memories came back to me, serving to remind me that these family ties last long after death. Our ancestors live on through us and through the stories they left behind. The image of my Grandma sharing her stories on the front porch will be the image that comes to mind the next time someone asks me what made me a genealogist.
Genealogy Origins
In recalling my own “genealogy origins,” I made a startling discovery. I realized that my children are well acquainted with stories of their grandparents and great-grandparents, but know little about the early life experiences of their own mother and father. I have become so focused on telling them stories from previous generations, that I have entirely neglected to tell them my own! After all, it as important to capture our own memories and experiences as it is to save our ancestors from being forgotten. Now I have a renewed commitment to preserve these stories and emotional connections for my own children and future grandchildren.
More to Come
I look forward to sharing more of my stories here with you at Genealogy Gems, as well as some good old tried and true research strategies to help you on your genealogical journey. In this first post, thank you for letting me share my genealogy origins story with you. I invite you to take some time to reflect on your own genealogy origins and go back in your mind to a place and time when you first felt the desire to search out your own ancestors. Who was it or what was it that ignited this spark within you? “What made you a genealogist?”
Share Your Story
Leave a comment below to share your own “genealogy origins” story. Or, if you’re ready to capture more of your life stories, consider purchasing the life-story writing guide, Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy by Genealogy Gems Contributing Editor Sunny Morton. It’s packed with journaling prompts for every phase of life–from childhood to retirement–and opportunities to reflect on the relationships and experiences that have shaped you. Give future generations the gift of your life’s stories and lessons: the pearls you have to pass on.
If you’re like me, you were happy to see the return of Who Do You Think You Are? to our TV lineup this past summer. You might have thought to yourself as you watched, “They make it look so easy! I wonder how long it took them to find that record?”
Well there have been some great articles written by the researchers behind the scenes at WDYTYA? For example, this post tells how it took more than 1000 hours of research for Cindy Crawford’s one-hour episode.
“It took months to research Cindy’s tree,” says the post at ProGenealogists, Ancestry’s official research arm. “Only the records that were essential stepping stones could be included in her story, and a few important steps we took along the way didn’t make the final cut.”
A post on Matthew Broderick’s episode, which aired in 2010, introduces us to using military records to find our family history. Matthew appeared in the 1989 Civil War film “Glory” but his great-great-grandfather experienced the real thing: he died while serving as a Union soldier. Other episodes bring up other episodes in the history of the world: Lisa Kudrow’s past includes the horrors of the Holocaust, Rosie O’Donnell’s covers the experience of a poor family in an Irish workhouse that was able to escape to Canada; Emmitt Smith’s probes the dark depths of African-American slavery. The post on Emmitt is a particularly detailed account of how this family was found.
You can click on similar posts relating to other WDYTYA guests, both past and present: Chris O’Donnell, Zooey Deschanel, Chelsea Handler, Christina Applegate, Kelly Clarkson, Tim McGraw, Vanessa Williams, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lisa Kudrow, Brooke Shields, and Susan Sarandon.
If you haven’t tuned in to WDYTYA yet, check it out on TLC on Tuesdays at 9pmEST. Or learn more about it and watch episodes at TLC’s website.
Remembering the stories of our veterans–both the living and the dead–is an important way we can all honor their service and sacrifices. Here we offer four ways to do that.
In our countdown to Veterans Day, we are honoring veterans and recognizing efforts of those who help document their lives and legacies. How might YOU put yourself in the right place at the right time to preserve a veteran’s story?
Collect and preserve the stories of living veterans. Use a tool like the free StoryCorp app to record a veteran’s story. Invite a story-preservation organization like Witness to War to a veterans’ reunion near you, or upload combat-related photos to their site.
Take images of veterans’ grave markers and upload them to sites like Find a Grave or Billion Graves. Be sure to include in your photo(s) clear images of military markers. This makes it easier for descendants to find and honor their own. For example, last summer, FGS and BillionGraves invited the public to post War of 1812 grave markers on BillionGraves. Why not keep up that effort?
Document and display the stories of veterans in your family or community. Lisa created a beautiful display
Here at Genealogy Gems, we {heart} veterans and honor their service. Veterans Day in the U.S. is coming up. How can you honor the veterans in your family or community? We’d love to hear about your heroic experiences doing that! Tell us about it on our Facebook page with the hashtag #CountdownToVeteransDay or contact us with your story. How many days until Veterans Day?
Many of us are interested in learning about our relatives’ World War II military service. One important–but little-known–resource may be a military yearbook.
World War II Era Yearbooks
From Eric, a Genealogy Gems Podcast listener:
Several years ago, my husband was given several mementos of his grandfather’s service in World War II. Among them was his 1942 yearbook of the 302nd Engineer’s Battalion at Fort Jackson, S.C.
I had never seen anything like this. Its opening pages state, “This is a pictorial record of military engineers preparing for war. As such, it will be cherished by this command in the years to come.” Pages are filled with photos of military exercises, particularly building and blowing things up. There are pages with a brief history of the battalion, group photos with individual names by company, the unit fight song, and behind-the-scenes photographs of inspection, off-hours entertainment, eating and a mock battle.
“All branches of the [U.S.] military generate yearbooks, and have done so since before World War II,” writes military historian and genealogist Eric Johnson in a 2014 issue of Ohio Genealogy News (45:3, pages 20-21, quoted here with permission). “Types of yearbooks include: training centers (boot camps), service schools, academies (U.S. and private), ROTC summer camps, senior officers’ schools, overseas deployments to a war zone or for a naval cruise to foreign ports.”
Eric says the first step to locating WWII yearbooks relevant to an ancestor’s service is to learn the “dates of service, when and where a person attended boot camp and service schools, and where a person was stationed (land or sea).” You can learn this from their military discharge papers or (beginning in 1950) their DD Form 214.
Three places to look online for WWII yearbooks are:
1. Google. A search for “302nd Engineer Battalion” brings up several websites, organizations and lists that may point me to a yearbook and teach me more of the battalion’s history and activities.
2. WorldCat, an enormous multi-library card catalog, with the name of a battalion or regiment and the phrase “military yearbook.” If you don’t find anything, search the unit name a little differently or more broadly. If you find a yearbook at a library, see if you can borrow it through interlibrary loan or (more likely) get copies from its pages.
3. eBay. This huge online auction site specializes in rare items like military yearbooks. Set up an eBay alert so if the yearbook is posted in the future, you’ll find out about it. Learn more about eBay alerts in the free Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode 140.
5 More Tips from Eric:
1. Look for military yearbooks in local, private and genealogy libraries, or from other veterans who served with an ancestor.
2. Military associations and reunion committees may have produced yearbooks, and they will likely know what yearbooks exist and perhaps where to find copies. Many of these have good websites.
3. Before purchasing a yearbook sight unseen (these can be pricy), compare a yearbook’s date to your ancestor’s service record. Make sure your ancestor was actually in that unit, boot camp, etc. during that time.
4. Check to see if your relative served on multiple ships or in more than one regiment, base, or posts. You may be looking for multiple yearbooks!
5. It’s possible you won’t find a relevant yearbook or cruise book. While searching, look for histories, living veterans or other resources to help you understand your relative’s military service experience.
Here at Genealogy Gems, we {heart} veterans and honor their service. Veterans Day in the U.S. is coming up. How can you honor the veterans in your family or community? #CountdownToVeteransDay How many days until Veterans Day?
Our new Genealogy Gems Book Club pick takes you into the Great Depression with a young socialite’s WPA project to capture the history of a small West Virginia town. She finds drama, contradicting versions of the past and unexpected romance. Enjoy this novel by an internationally best-selling author!
It’s the summer of 1938. Wealthy young Layla Beck’s big problem is not the Great Depression: it’s her father’s orders to marry a man she despises. She rebels, and suddenly finds herself on the dole. A Works Progress Administration assignment lands her in Macedonia, West Virginia, where she’s to write its history. As she starts asking questions about the town’s past, she is drawn into the secrets of the family she’s staying with—and to a certain handsome member of that family. She and two of those family members take turns narrating the story from different points of view, exploring the theme that historical truth, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder.
That’s a nutshell version of our new Genealogy Gems Book Club featured title, The Truth According to Us by internationally best-selling author Annie Barrows. It’s available in print and on Kindle formats: click above to purchase. (Thanks for using this link: your purchase supports free content on the Genealogy Gems podcast and blog.)
Leave a comment below to share your own “genealogy origins” story. Or, if you’re ready to capture more of your life stories, consider purchasing the life-story writing guide, Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy by Genealogy Gems Contributing Editor Sunny Morton. It’s packed with journaling prompts for every phase of life–from childhood to retirement–and opportunities to reflect on the relationships and experiences that have shaped you. Give future generations the gift of your life’s stories and lessons: the pearls you have to pass on.
It’s available in print and on Kindle formats: click above to purchase. (Thanks for using this link: your purchase supports free content on the Genealogy Gems podcast and blog.)