It was surreal. Seeing in front of me a building that is in the background of so many of my Great Grandmother's photos. My eyes played tricks on me. Even though it was a bright, blue sky day- I saw only sepia tones. The past came to life before me, a giant jigsaw puzzle of pictures. As I walked the grounds, the pictures twirled in front of me- superimposing themselves on this corner or that of the shell, left vacant from the hospital's closing. They fluttered in my imagination as I mentally tried to fit them into the scene before me. I traveled through time and space to get there, and once I was there I felt clumsy and awkward. I was a child so excited I didn't know what to do with myself. At one point I literally could not move. My body refused to obey logic, reprimanding me to stop and breathe. The whole experience was magical!
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Late last night I was given a beautiful gift, one of the most precious kinds to me- peoples' stories. A distant relative penned me an email and shared in it, bits of our relatives stories. Being the family genealogist, I vastly treasure stories of the people I have researched. They are precious jewels that need to be delicately guarded and passed on. The tiniest recollections can inspire wonder, awe and even sorrow in me.
I previously blogged about the immense loss one pair of my ancestors had to deal with, in losing 5 of their small children in a span of about 18 months (1862). I can't imagine how they gathered their strength and continued on. Well, last night my cousin mentioned a cousin who was run over by a lawn mower and was killed. She said the victim was a teenager at the time. She couldn't remember the name nor who's child it was exactly- an aunt's or an uncle's. Can you imagine? I can't help but wonder if, instead of a lawnmower, it was a piece of farm equipment instead - as our families worked the land in Maryland. I haven't been able to find any newspaper clippings on this, and I think that would be an unusual death enough to warrant at least a brief mention in a paper. I will need to look into this further when I have time to narrow down a teenage death by tractor, lawn mower, or other farm equipment. Or, perhaps it was on my cousin's mother's side of the family - which would not be any family I am familiar with. Hmm.. We are all connected. Bloodlines, common passions, causes we believe in, personality types- everything that makes us who we are can also connect us to others who share those beliefs, interests and familial roots. Though these things are not often easily witnessed, they run deep and make up the fabric of who we are.
I look to the past in search of connections that have been lost to time. I can't expect people to understand how strongly I feel to family that I find this way, as I myself do not understand it. I just feel these connections deep in my bones, in my DNA. Perhaps it is easy for me to be open to these connections, because of my sister and brother? As a child, my older sister, although she died before I was born, was a big part of my life. My mother and I would visit her grave, would light a candle for her when we went to church and would pray for her. She was our 'guardian angel' watching over us always. When I was growing up, I imagined her growing older with me. She was 16 when I was 14, and I envisioned sharing in her triumph over getting her drivers license and taking me out for a celebratory ride. I daydreamed about her often when I was young. What would her life have been like? What did she look like? I had so many questions and I filled in the holes through my daydreams. (She had blonde hair like the heroines in fairy tales and movies. She had creamy pale skin and blue eyes, the color of the sky, because when I looked up to the heavens I imagined her above me always. She was mostly nice to me, her little sister, because we were close in age, but we sometimes were cross with each other, like normal kids.) In this way, I have felt a strong connection to my sister even though I never met her. My brother, well, I feel connected to him for very different reasons... We grew up in different homes. He grew up with his mother and I grew up with our father. We didn't know about each other's existence until we were older, though he knew about me way before I found out about him. Our father decided to tell me about my brother when we were at a Perkins restaurant one day when I was 19. I had just moved back to Ohio from living in Texas for over a year. Why he told me, I will never know. I was instantly furious with him. I told him that this was the worst joke he has ever attempted. He said it wasn't a joke, gave me my brother's first name and said that my brother's mother used to live on the street that my father grew up on. I stormed out of the restaurant and went to my mother (as they had separated years earlier) to ask her. She confirmed it was true and said she had forgotten about it. Over the next 2 days I tracked my brother's grandparents down, came face to face with his grandmother and demanded (in my stubborn inconsiderate naivety) that I talk to my brother. I subsequently broke down into tears when I was face to face with his grandmother and barely was able to get out my name before I was an incoherent mess. (I am very happy she took pity on me and had a stash of tissues in her office). Well, my brother and I ended up meeting soon after and to this day I feel so much love and connection to my "big brother" that I don't even bother to identify that he is technically my half-brother. So, maybe it is for those reasons, my sister and brother, that I feel strong connections to 'strangers' who turn out to be family members. I don't need to know why for myself, and only explain it here so that others can understand. I especially would like you to keep this in mind if, one day, you get an unexpected message or email from a stranger asking about your ancestors. ;) I drove down to C Burr Artz Public Library today. I was specifially looking for info on F Hannah Englar Bond's land- which was called Red Level in the newspaper. I could not find her, nor her husband in any of the Frederick directories I searched through (from late 1800s to 1923).
However, I was able to find the original land record from Cornelius Bond! The ladies in the Maryland Room sure did help me out! They gave me online resources to search for the current property owners which lead me backwards to my ancestor! I looked at the 1863 map and cross-referenced it with Google Maps aerial view. I took the address that I believed was the farm, from Google Maps. The Maryland Room has a book that identifies all owners of properties by street name, which was helpful too. That address I plugged into the Maryland "State Department of Assessments and Taxation (SDAT) and came up with a present - day owners. Then I took the Deed Reference numbers and plugged those into the Plats.Net site. I followed the deeds back until I found my ancestor! I have digital copies of the deeds, and I actually want to follow them back further, just didn't have time yet. It's all super exciting! I want to contact the present day owners and ask if I can come out and walk their farm to see where my GGG grandparents lived. I've been editing the FindAGrave website, linking with my direct ancestors. Hopefully my work is 1) correct 2) helps others to establish lineage 3) adds something to the community at large.
The site just got an update, so it is looking much more user friendly than the plain Jane website I am used to. Hopefully, others will link more family members who have passed away and we will have another resource (albeit unofficial, as no documental proof is required to link people) to look to for genealogical resources! Wouldn't that be nice? |
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