research my family tree, on both sides of the family

we’ve got information, i want to document it. starting TODAY!

My mom told me that she has all her past information saved in a memory box in the basement, which I will get from her. She said the information goes all the way back to a captain of a ship from Norway.

Honestly, some people work so hard to get all the information that they want and I’m so thankful that my parents already found the stuff years ago. I honestly thought that this goal would have taken me forever, but I’m just about done.

So today I got a LOT of information from my dad, who wrote pratically a book for my nephew johnny when he was 2. He told me that he wants to give it to my nephew when he dies (morbid, i know but thats what my family runs on). So, it’s like 20 pages long, written in my dads ALL CAPS TINY FONT. I will copy all the pages and see if I can get some more information from my mom’s side of the family. I would ask my grandma, but she hardly remembers anything. Maybe we can pull out the pictures… I should copy all of the pictures too, so that if anything were to happen, we have back ups. That is very tedious though. But I just might do it! I will ask the nurse Jane, if she knows anything about my grandmas family… because she grew up with her, so she knows alot more than my mom knows. I also might call my great Aunt Margaret, because shes still sane.

So the woman who is helping take care of grandma has told me some things yesterday about my grandma and her sister that I did not know. Just stories about what they did when they were kids and other stuff like that.

And there is even a song ;)

http://www.contactez.net/gurleyalabama/LostGoldofKeelMountain.html

This year I found a nature preserve on the mountain, and before had been told that it had passed out of our family and we were no longer allowed there. Time for a road trip!

http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/alabama/preserves/art4360.html

My Mother’s Family home is on the National Historic Register and I grew up visiting with her Father, who was actually born there. It was very impressive to touch that history so deeply.
http://www.chieftainsmuseum.org/

Supposedly there are other of our family homes around the country that have been perserved and others not. I have read an interesting book from the 1940’s written by a family member who traveled searching for all of the properties, before living memory had faded. It is an exciting read, for me. I would really like to spend a few years in the collection of Chieftans searching. There is a journal there somewhere of the journey from Virginia to Mobile searching for the next family farm, which was written by a surveyor and so interestingly notated. I have heard it details even the modes of transportation from train to wagon and by foot, but it is lost in a pile of history mixed in with all of the other papers from the house. I have held, though, in my own hands the first deed to the house of my own family from 1849 for $25,000.

I have been researching my family and my husband’s family. It is amazing how many lives had to touch each other to make our family. It’s a labor of love because I want my children to be completely aware of who and where they came from. I want them to be proud of their heritage. I want them to know their history.

I don’t know much about my father’s side of the family. Hell, I don’t know much about my father at all. On my mother’s side, I only know about my Grandma and Grandpa, and my mom said my Grandma has some Chinese in her. I would love to know beyond that, and even see some pictures. On my father’s side, I only know that my Grandpa there was a great military guy. He died before I was born, and he was paralyzed for slipping in the bathroom. I met my Grandma on my father’s side once, and apparently I get loving to write from her.