Prompt #1: Do you have a favorite female ancestor? One you are drawn to or want to learn more about? Write down some key facts you have already learned or what you would like to learn and outline your goals and potential sources you plan to check.
Parents for some reason are always asking other parents whose their favorite child. Now most of them know the answer but still ask the question. I have always found these a very silly thing until I read the prompt for today and then I understood the not just the question but the answer.
We ask the question because it gets you to thinking. Billy is great but he never seems to come when called and Sally is so funny but she never keeps her room clean. It's not that one of those things makes either of them less your favorite but they distinguish between them and that is why the answer is always the same; "how can I choose between my children".
Well my ancestors aren't my children but when asked to choose one I feel as if they are; there is just absolutely no way to choose between them. If it wasn't for all of them then I wouldn't be here. Good, bad, those you can't find and those you might wish you didn't. They all make up some part of who I am and especially the women. I am reminded in a million little things I do everyday that I am standing on the shoulders of giants. That is why I have tweaked this prompt a little for my purposes. Instead of picking just one female that I want to dedicate my research or even this blog post to I decided to dedicate it to all of them.
I think it is a disservice that with one tree of my family I have found each successive grandfather back to 1870 and can list each wife that they all had but I have no last names for any of them. I have no information on any of them past they married into this line and had children. These women had lives and family before they joined into mine and I want to meet them even if only in census records and lost news clippings. These are my people, my family, more giants that have lead to the opportunities and live that I have the honor of leading today. I want to remember them just the same as the others that I have found. I mean that is why we do what we do isn't it?
We want to pay some kind of tribute to those that came before us. Those that gave us the life that we enjoy today and to not find half of those relatives just because of one name seems so unfair.
That has become my new goal. To find the last names of those women and even if I never conclusively find their families I will still have given them a voice all there own. Not just one linked to their husbands or children but one that stands by itself welcoming me in.
2 Historic Comments:
I hope you find them. all of them. and their birth families too, because you will find more of your women relatives when you do.
Thank you so much for your great comment of encouragement.
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