A layout of how I discovered a little bit about my Great-Grandma.

Journaling says:
Growing up I knew a lot about my Mom’s side of the family, but my Dad’s side was a bit more of a mystery. When I got interested in Genealogy I hoped to finally learn more about my Dad’s family. Unfortunately my Dad and his siblings really didn’t have a lot of information on either set of their grandparents. My Grandma could still remember some of the names for her relatives but had little information on my Grandpa’s family and my Grandpa was no longer alive to ask. We had the name of my Great-Grandfather, but my Great-Grandmother proved to be the bigger mystery. I knew her name was Frieda and she had passed away sometime in the early 1920’s when my Grandfather was just a little boy, but that was it and it wasn’t a lot to go on. I added what I did know to my family tree on Ancestry.com but was unable to uncover anything else.

A few months later when my Mom was helping to clean out my Grandma’s apartment she came across a copy of the obituary for my Grandpa’s youngest brother who had been raised by an Aunt and Uncle. This tiny piece of paper provided a very valuable clue to finding more information finally about Frieda – I finally had her maiden name. Also in my Grandma’s papers my Mom found a photo of Frieda’s grave which listed her year of death as being 1920. I felt that I was finally going to find something out about her. When I added the newly discovered information in Ancestry.com I was hopeful, but no little leaf appeared. I was disappointed, but several months after that I would receive a message from a long distant cousin.

A fellow user on Ancestry.com saw the information on my tree and knew that we were related. They sent me a message that they had information on Frieda’s parents and grandparents. I couldn’t believe it! I replied that I would be grateful with any information they could send me. From this long distant cousin I was able to add the name of Frieda’s parents and grandparents. They also sent me the names of the cemeteries where they are buried. I quickly looked up the cemeteries online to locate the graves. I can’t wait to go and find them. There are still a lot of unanswered questions like how she died since she was quite young. My Grandpa and his siblings were very young when she died and didn’t talk about her much and their father had remarried.

It was amazing to see that branch of the tree just blossom after being bare for so long.

Credits:
Worn by Sahlin Studio and One Little Bird