Oh 3S, I wish too that I could be back and talk to all my old relatives who are gone now! All these things that I could have asked them back then are real mysteries now! I have gotten sooooo "lost" in Ancestry.com! I have almost 1,900 people in my "tree" now, and hundreds of pictures. Witz, it is so addictive! You solve some mysteries and create others! I've found out all kinds of things, and I've found out that some of the old family stories I've heard all my life are total BS!
I love looking at the old handwritten census forms because they had so much information on the families, even what they did for a living and how much their house was worth! And it really lets you see how they lived back then ... young mothers dying in childbirth and babies and young children being lost to diseases that are easily cured with antibiotics now. I've found out so many things that I never knew because the relatives never talked about them. I always knew that my paternal grandmother had two brothers, never knew there had also been a sister and a third brother. When my grandmother was just five years old they lost her seven year old sister and one year old brother to diphtheria. I can't imagine being that age and losing the sister that was probably her only playmate and a baby brother, but it happened all the time back then. So sad! And I'm still trying to solve the mystery of my maternal grandfathers family. I knew that his mother (my great-grandmother) died when he was very young and his father remarried a few years later. And I remember his four older sisters, my great-aunts. I remember knowing them when I was a child. Turns out there was also an older brother who just seems to disappear in his late teens/early 20's. My grandfather never mentioned him. I did find someone with the same name who died in Germany during WWI but there is no way to know if it was him or someone else with the same name. And three of the great-aunts just disappear after their mother died, only to reappear years later under their married names. My grandfather was the youngest and he and one sister remained with the father. I can only assume that the older ones were farmed out to relatives. It really makes you think ... back in 1903, what would a working man with six young children to raise do when his wife dies? There was no day care, no welfare, no social security, no food stamps. People just did the best they could. He didn't remarry until three years later and it is this step-mother that my grandfather remembered as his mother. And there are a few other "relatives" that I can't figure out who the h*ll they were! The woman that my mother called her cousin, my godmother, although she was raised by one great-aunt, wasn't her bio-daughter and doesn't belong to any of the siblings! I have no idea who she was!
The best part is when you connect with other people, even very distant ones, who have a lot of information and pictures to share. I connected with one lady, a real expert - her great-uncle was married to my great aunt, my grandfathers sister. She had tons of information I never knew and lots of wonderful pictures. She had a beautiful pictures of the great-aunt and uncle as newlyweds. I only knew them as very old people, couldn't even imagine them ever being that young! I also connected with another lady who has done very extensive research for years. This lady's husband's great-grandfather and my great-grandfather were brothers. She never had that much information on our branch of the family though so we've been trading information and pictures back and forth for over a year! I've figured out that you can't just "dabble" in this stuff, it's just so addictive! And the more you find, the more you want to keep looking! Fascinating stuff!
