From Roots to a Branch

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adventure, Air Force, Ancestry.com, Bunny, genealogy, investigation, journey, military, mystery, Taylor

I found you!  Kunta Kinte!  I found you!

— Alex Haley, Roots:  The Next Generations

I remember very well watching both Roots and Roots:  The Next Generations when I was in my teens.  I think in some ways, watching the story of Alex Haley’s ancestry unfold planted some of the first seeds for my own interest in family history.  I just watched the ending of the sequel to make sure I had the quote above correct, and got to again experience the elation expressed by James Earl Jones as Alex Haley when he discovered that he had indeed found the people from which his ancestor, Kunta Kinte had been taken from.  Even more touching though, was the scene where Haley was about to leave when a young man came running up.  It turned out that this man was a long-lost cousin of his, and the two men embraced as Haley broke down, sobbing with the overwhelming emotions he must have felt.

This past year, our only niece graduated from high school in Michigan.  Unfortunately, our budget didn’t allow the two of us to be at her graduation or open house.  However, we were able to afford a plane ticket so she could visit her aunt and uncle in California.  She came to visit us in August, about a month before she started college.

The first weekend she was here, Bill came back from the mailbox and handed me a large, thick, manila envelope.  I took one look at the return address, and I got excited.

The minute I saw this, I knew exactly what it contained. My uncle's military records!

I contained my excitement enough to open the envelope without ripping the contents.  Though I wanted to go through the documents in more detail at some point, my goal the first time through was to skim through to see if I could find any mention of my Aunt Bunny.

So, through the pages I went, as fast as I could go without missing any mention of a name.  Place names were popping up on every page.  Street names were familiar; Knickerbocker Avenue, Genesee Avenue, and Wheeler Drive were all places I knew the family had lived at one time or another.  Then came places that my Uncle was stationed like Korea, Casablanca, Texas, Michigan, and others.

It wasn’t until almost the very last pages in the packet that I found what I was looking for.  On the page, the typing was very faint, so it was hard to read.  “7 Jan 52:  Amn (Airman) married Miss Ethel….”

Ethel?  Was Aunt Bunny’s real name Ethel?  There was one way to find out.  I went in and changed the name on my records at Ancestry.com and I got a new leaf!

One of the things I was pointed to were some family trees, and a few of them had a picture attached to their record of Ethel.  It was a picture that I had never posted on Ancestry.com, but it excited me even more when I saw it.

That's right! It was the same picture of Bunny and her children that my Dad had given me!

I was certain that whoever had this picture was a member of the family somehow.  I just didn’t know who.  It could be one of my cousins, or it could be another relative of my Aunt.  I was hoping that whoever it was would be able to help me find Aunt Bunny and my cousins.

So, to the two people who I saw with the picture, I sent an email.  Basically I said that I had come across the name in my Uncle’s separation paperwork, that I had seen the picture and it matched one my father had given to me, and asked how they might be related and that I was trying to find out if my Aunt and cousins were still living, and if so, would there be a way to get in touch with them by email or phone.  I did not include any names in my email at the time.

The first person I sent the message to didn’t respond for a few days, and while they were helpful, they were not a relative of mine (it was a relative from Bunny’s side of the family though).  The second person I sent the message to was the first to respond.  The reply was brief, but thrilling:

Hi Pam,
Bunny was my mother. Who was your uncle?

I had my own little Alex Haley moment when I read that.  I found you!  Cousin!  I found you!  I immediately wrote back, this time filling in the details so that she knew exactly who I was talking about.  I eventually was given contact information for all my cousins.  I also found out that the two oldest actually were Bunny’s children from a previous marriage, so they are not actually blood relatives, though I still consider them to be my cousins.

Unfortunately, I found out my Aunt Bunny passed away a few years ago.  It was the one sad thing amid this joyous moment.

The greatest thing though was that while my niece was still with us, we were able to talk on the phone with one of my cousins.  He actually had been the one that, several years before had called around to find my Dad, and they both unfortunately lost touch with each other after that brief re-connection.  I was able to put them back in touch with each other, and my cousin visited Michigan last fall to spend time with my Dad.  My brother and his family also got to meet him.  I am hoping that I will get to meet him and my other cousins soon.

So, I had met the challenge my Dad had originally set for me; it took just over a year to do it.  By tracing our roots, I had just discovered a branch on our tree that had been hidden from view.  While that portion of the journey was over, my adventuring in ancestry was just getting started!

Photographs and Memories

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adventure, Bunny, Detroit Suburbs, genealogy, journey, Lubbock, McCombs, memories, Michigan, mystery, photographs, Taylor, Texas

When my father sent me several documents related to our family history, he sent me a few photographs too.  Two of these photographs made me think back, remembering times from my past.

This was my Dad’s cousin Harold, and his wife Grace.  I only had the opportunity to see him a couple of times, but I remember him being a kind man, and he had a bit of a sense of humor.  His wife was nice, and a wonderful hostess when we visited their home in Lubbock, Texas when I was in my teens.  I still remember having the best hamburger of my life down there.  It was really more of a steak burger, because they used ground sirloin.  Yummy!

Harold had served in the military, and had been a prisoner of war.  Every time I see “Bridge on the River Kwai” I think of Harold because I was told that he worked on it while in captivity.

The next picture was older; the memories that came to me with it were not of the young girls in the photo, but of some of the women I knew in it.

 The people in this picture were misidentified in this picture a couple of times by my Dad.  He originally told me that this was a picture of my great-grandmother and three of her four girls.  He later identified it correctly as the four sisters.  However, he had also identified the youngest (on the left) as my grandmother, but in reality, she was not the youngest; the girl on the left was actually her sister, Jessie Rae.  My grandmother would then be on the right.  The oldest girl would be Donna, who was Harold’s mother.  The girl seated would be Jeanette.

Sadly, I never knew two of the people in the photograph.  Aunt Donna had died long before we were able to visit Texas as a family, and my grandmother died when I was just a baby.  I do remember Aunt Rae a little better.  We had several occasions where we would attend family gatherings together.  My memories of her though are not very distinct; bits and pieces of a Thanksgiving dinner or some other holiday gathering, but most of them relate more to the food or to the other children than they do to Aunt Rae.

With Aunt Jeanette though, the memories are quite vivid.  I spent so many days with her.  While she always seemed old to me, when I was a child I can remember going so many places with her.  She would often take me with her when she would do to visit with Aunt Rae or other family members that were down in the Detroit suburbs.  I would often stay the night at her house, and I would be there on occasion when out-of-town visitors came by.  I believe the first time I met Harold was one of those times; I met his brother Glenn on another occasion when I was at Aunt Jeanette’s.

The final picture had no memories associated with it.  It was a picture of family members I had never met before:  My Aunt Bunny and her children.

I knew they were out there, somewhere.  I was hoping that I would soon get the next clue to help solve the mystery of where they were.  Little did I know that this picture would be a key clue to that solution.

Road Maps and Guides

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adventure, Bunny, genealogy, guide, information, journey, Malden, Missouri

When I plan a journey, I don’t just head out the door and hope for the best.  I do a bit of homework first.  If I’m travelling by car, I might open up a road map and trace out my route.  If I know people who live in the area, or friends that have visited my destination previously, I may ask their opinion on places to go or things to see.  For a place I cannot ask about from those I know, I may turn to the Internet or the local library for additional information.  In arriving at a destination, I might even ask a local or two to suggest a good restaurant, or a place to see.  Guidance and advice can often lead to interesting finds on the journey.

My journey in genealogy started off with some homework as well.  The road map that I consulted was my own knowledge of my family tree.  I knew both my parents’ full names and dates of birth.  On my father’s side, I knew both his parents’ names, as well as his mother’s maiden name.  I knew the name of the city they had both come from (Malden, Missouri).  On my paternal grandmother’s side, I knew her parents’ first names, but I did not know the maiden name of my great-grandmother.  I had no clue about my grandfather’s parents at all.

As to the uncle about whose children I was trying to find more information, the only guide I could consult was my father, and at the beginning of my journey, there was not much guidance he gave.  He knew his brother’s full name; he could even rattle off his military ID number by heart.  But, when I asked what I thought would be a simple question (“When was he born?”)  I got this response:  “I don’t know.”

Other questions turned out to have similar frustrating conclusions.  While he knew the names of the children, he knew none of their birth dates.  The name of my aunt from this previous marriage (at least what they called her) was Bunny; was that her real name?  He didn’t know.  While he thought my aunt and uncle met (and possibly married) in Texas, he couldn’t be sure, and since my uncle had been in the military while they were married, they moved around.  He knew of one or two locations, but as to when they had been in each, again, I met with the dead-end that is “I don’t know.”

On my mother’s side of the family (which I also decided to look into), I had a better road map.  I had been given a copy of research someone in the family had already compiled.  It contained birth and death information, names, some locations, and on some, even the cause of death.  Once again, the information stopped pretty much with my great grandparents, but at least I had both of my maternal great grandmothers’ maiden names; one better than I had on my father’s side.  I did some similar queries with my aunts, but their knowledge stopped at about the same place as the printed family tree.

So, I had consulted the maps of my family tree, and I had asked for guidance from my family.  I was now ready to embark upon my genealogical journey, and let the adventure truly begin!