Why Attend Genealogy Conferences?

I left Sacramento, CA, on Saturday, and arrived in Grand Rapids, MI, on Monday. That’s NINE states in THREE days! California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Thirty-two hours behind the wheel to travel about 2,400 miles. Some of you would probably call me crazy. I get it. Why would anyone travel so far, by car mind you, to spend four days sitting through genealogical lectures from 8:30 in the morning until 5:30 in the afternoon?  In one word: Passion.

I was having dinner in the hotel tonight with a fellow genealogist, who is also a friend and newfound cousin, when our waiter asked a similar question. What do you do at a genealogy conference? First, we talked about the passion genealogists have for learning about their ancestors. We explained that genealogy is much more than dates and places. It is about discovering the life lived in those places, between those dates. It’s about “the dash.”  A favorite song by Scotty McCreery explains this idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSTY9NZvBfI

Genealogy conferences, such as the NGS Family History Conference, give those with a passion for genealogy an opportunity to learn from experts in the field, to improve their research techniques, to explore records they may never have heard about before, and to network with others in the genealogical community. Sometimes we find cousins we never knew we had. Other times we may find that elusive piece of the puzzle which could complete the picture of an ancestor’s life, allowing us to break through the brick wall in our research.

Ancestors are waiting for us to uncover their stories. I often feel like mine are guiding my research, leading me to the records they left behind. This week I will learn best practices and discover new resources. I can’t wait to get started!

 

The Driving Gene: The Journey Begins

Our genetic make-up defines many of our physical characteristics: hair color and type, eye color and shape, skin color, basic body shape, and so much more. It can indicate our propensity toward certain diseases, and it can explain personality traits and quirks. For instance, if I can prove the work done by others before me, I may be able to blame John Howland, the man who fell off the Mayflower, for my inherent clutziness. That would explain a lot!

I told a cousin the other day that I think my love of driving is genetic, as well. Dad loved to drive. Unfortunately, as my sister and I can verify, he didn’t like to stop much. I don’t mind stopping every couple of hours, but I tend to keep it to less than 15 minutes when traveling alone.

Today I drove the first, and shortest, leg of my 27-day journey–from Willows to Sacramento. I don’t mind flying, but driving has its perks. You can see much more of the natural beauty of this great country, and do it so much better, from the window of a car than a plane. You can travel with anything you want, as long as it fits into the trunk of your car, and the extra space inside. (I actually had a lot of free space this trip!)

As I was driving I saw the usual signs of spring in the rural Northern California countryside. Dust was flying in fields where tractors worked in prepartion for planting rice. Almond and walnut trees were dressed in their brand new spring-green frocks. The tall weeds in the medians were waving their green tassels in an April, kite-perfect wind. The pastel blue sky was speckled with families of puffy-white, cumulus clouds. A beautiful day for a drive!

Do you prefer to drive, or fly? Maybe you prefer trains. (I have only been on a few short train trips.) I bet your family would be interested in hearing about one of your trips. Come on. Go ahead. Take a chance. Show Your Tale…

 

Turning Point

Journey to Certification, Part 3:

Defining moments come to everyone, probably more often than we realize. One of those defining moments came for me during our visit to Minnesota for the Olson Family Reunion in July, 2014. The journey with my sister B. and Aunt L. was so much fun! Seeing my aunts reunited was heartwarming. Reconnecting with cousins we haven’t seen for years (some for over 50 years) was a true blessing. But it was one cemetery visit, with memories of burying our other sister still fresh in my mind and heart, that brought it all home for me. I understood at that moment what I was to do with the rest of my life.

I had been dragging my sister B. around for a week, taking her to every cemetery I knew of where ancestors were buried. She helped me walk up and down rows and rows of markers trying to find the names on my lists. Our travels took us from Albert Lea, MN, to Sioux Falls, SD,  and then south to Sibley, IA. Of course, there was an agreement made my sister that, if she was going to go with me to cemeteries, then I was going to take her to Falls Park while visiting Sioux Falls. Not a problem. Aunt L. accompanied us on that excursion, too. It was a fun day for all.

One of our last cemetery visits took us to Sibley, IA. Before leaving on our road trip, I found the cemetery where our grandfather, Peter Brinkman (1890-1914), was buried. We never knew him. He died two months before our father was born. According to Google Maps, the cemetery was south of Sibley, out in the middle of a corn field. I wasn’t even sure whether it still existed. It was called the Hope German Presbyterian Cemetery.

Our first stop in Sibley was at the Chamber of Commerce. When asked about this cemetery, the woman in the office said she had never heard of it. She sent us to the public library, just a block away. We had no idea what we would find there.

The main librarian hadn’t heard of the cemetery, either. However, they just happened to have a binder of a compiled list of all the cemeteries in Osceola County, recently donated to the library. The man who compiled the work listed the name of every person found, dates on the inscription, the cemetery in which they were interred, and the town where that cemetery was located. (There may have been other pieces of information, too, which I don’t recall now.) She brought out the binder and let us look for our grandfather’s name.

“There! There it is! Oh, my gosh!! I can’t believe it! Hope Cemetery! We found him, B.! We found him! The cemetery does exist!” I was so excited, I think my heart took a leap or two!

There was another young woman helping at the counter. When I showed her the entry for our grandfather, she said, “I think I have been to that cemetery with my grandmother.” She went straight to the computer and printed out directions. Almost there, I thought, an anxious lump growing in my throat.

Well, the drive to find the cemetery was interesting, to say the least. The directions wanted us to turn off of a nice paved road onto a dirt field road. I started to turn, determined to get to our destination. Being a country girl married to a rice farmer, driving on field roads didn’t intimidate me. However, we didn’t make it more than 50 feet, or so, and there was a huge mud puddle. A thunderstorm had come through and dropped a bunch of rain for two days. Next to the puddle was a sign to the effect, “Enter at your own risk.” We decided, since we were not in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle, it would be best to heed the warning. There had to be another way to get to the cemetery. Thank goodness for GPS!

After backing up, we were back on pavement, at least for a while. Eventually, we found ourselves on a public dirt/gravel road, obviously maintained by some road crew. While I drove, my sister concentrated on the Google Map and the car’s GPS map. Finally, she says, “We are very close.” We passed a cornfield, a long row of trees, and a white farmhouse with a sign that read “Olson.” All of a sudden she said, “We missed it. We have gone too far.” Slowly, I backed up from the corner, past the farmhouse, past the row of trees, slower and slower. Then, I stopped.

There, between the cornfield and the trees, was a road, covered with grass/weeds, green from the fresh rain. Our eyes barely caught sight of something at the end of the road–a cyclone fence. Could that be it? I backed up just a bit more, and there it was. Beyond the fence we saw headstones! Heart racing, I drove slowly to the edge of the fence. We got out and looked around.

The cemetery was not very big, maybe 30 or 40 headstones at most. Many of them had the surname of Frey, another ancestral name on our father’s side. We walked around for a short time, then my sister proclaimed, “Oh my gosh! We found it! He’s here! I don’t believe it.” We stood in front of our grandfather’s headstone, the closest we had ever been to him in our lives, held each other, and cried. They were tears of joy in the discovery, but also tears of sadness. We were sad that we never knew him, but even more, we were sad that he never knew his son. How much our father needed him as a child! We just stood there for a while, thinking out loud, relishing the experience, and took lots of pictures.

That was my defining moment. That was the moment I knew that I had to pursue genealogy with a purpose.  I needed to find out about my ancestors more deeply. Who they were. How they lived. Where they came from. I wanted to learn more about genealogical research. I decided then and there that, once back to California, I would turn this dream into a reality. I didn’t know how, but I knew this would be my new path in life–a life-long passion turned into a new career, possibly.

TO BE CONTINUED

Overcoming Loss

Journey to Certification, Part 2:   Bone marrow transplant day arrived in March, 2013. It was quite an experience and an amazing process to be a part of. I was grateful to have my older sister by my side that day. We laughed. We cried. She fed me, because I  was not allowed to arms. She kept tabs on both Carol and I throughout the day. We understood the importance of what was about to happen, the chance to save our sister,  but we knew there was no guarantee. I produced over 9,000,000 stem cells in the 4-5 hours of collection. About two-thirds of those were given to Carol around 5:30 pm that same day. The rest would be frozen and saved for another time, another person, perhaps. We were all gathered around her bed and watched as the transplant took place. Hope, love, and gratitude filled the room.

The next seven months did not go as hoped. Even though I was a perfect match, the cancer fought against the transplant. Her body did its best to fight back. Blood tests kept showing low magnesium and potassium levels, and she endured hours and hours of infusions. The doctors decided to give her a second dose of my stem cells, but still the leukemia would not give up. I felt like I had failed her. How could this happen? Did the doctors underestimate the strength of this cancer which they knew so little about when they decided to go with a lighter prep regime? Was I such a close match that her body could not distinguish between my cells and Carol’s?  Everyone was so disappointed, but still she fought.

Another donor was sought, someone not related. A second transplant was to be given in February, 2014. One of her daughters and a granddaughter were her care-givers in 2013, but they couldn’t be there in 2014. I was asked to fill that need and willingly accepted. Things seemed to go better at first, but eventually, the cancer would win. Carol fought a valiant fight for four long years. The literature on her disease predicted at most 18 months after diagnosis, so she did beat the odds. She passed away in May 2014.

Her passing created a heavy feeling of loss, but also a feeling of greater love for my sisters. An Olson Family Reunion was planned for July 2014 by a cousin in Minnesota for the purpose of reuniting the last two living sisters born to Emil and Marjorie Olson–one lived in Minnesota and was nearing 100 years of the age; the other, her baby sister, lived in California. This is just what I needed–a new purpose. After losing my sister, I was bound and determined to make sure these two sisters, my aunts, would be together once more. I convinced our aunt, the one in California, to make the trip out to spend a week or more with her sister. I would drive and my older sister would accompany us. What a great adventure we had! So many memories.

But that tale is for another time…

TO BE CONTINUED