Looking back some 20 years, I had this hope to one day buy good china. Our mother would use her most cherished family china on Holidays. I didn’t have china so I wanted to purchase china that was an expression of me and my new life and family.
So I went to the store to pick out a pattern but I was always drawn to farmhouse patterns. Although they warmed my heart tremendously, it wasn’t grown up China for a woman. I wanted grown up china! I went to the store many times, over and over again always drawn to the same pattern, the darn farmhouse. I had no idea why I couldn’t find a pattern other than the farmhouse, I was struggling to understand.
One evening after putting the children to sleep, I went to my computer and I started to browse for a pattern again. I put in the county from where I grew up thinking maybe, I’d find my pattern. All of a sudden a farmhouse pattern showed up called Bucks County from Royal China in Sebring, Ohio. The same pattern our grandmother used for her everyday dishes which was a farmhouse pattern. Then I knew, I missed her deeply and all the wonderful memories, she made for us.
I put her name into the search bar with tears in my eyes and something came up called death index, scary I thought! I quickly navigated away from it. I put her name in over and over and the death index kept coming up. I thought okay, let’s see what this is about. I read the social security death index had a file of the entire life of my grandmother. Well that is what I thought it said. The site said send in $7 and get the file so I did. This was the beginning of genealogy, family tree building and family history for me.
The next day life continued and I forgot about it for many days, until I received it in the mail. I must admit, I was a little scared to open it. What was I going to find? Why was the envelope so small when I was suppose to get the entire file of her life? I opened it and then I saw it, her handwriting! As I read the copy of the social security application my grandmother filled out, I saw her mothers and fathers names and where she was born. My grandmother was born in Germany but I never knew where, now I did because she wrote the name of her home town. Boy was I excited!
That night after I put the children to bed, I looked again at this social security death index. The Social Security Death Index is part of our Federal organization where all applications were kept after people passed away. So I decided to send for all my grandparents records. It was like Christmas in July! Everyday was another new application record.
Meanwhile, I remembered my baby book had a family tree with all the grandparents names back to my great grandparents. I took my social security applications of my grandparents and they matched my tree in my baby book. I have names, birth date’s, fathers name, mothers names and places. Thank you, Mom! Voila, my family history has started!
We will all have a different starting points because we will all have different pieces of information. Some will have relatives they can talk to, bible records, partially started family tree or death announcements, diaries and letters. Whatever it is they are all clues to your family history.