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Old 11-05-2011, 05:58 PM
 
Location: the bluegrass state
62 posts, read 70,546 times
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Growing up I always would question my name, my teachers and friends where always commenting on how unique it was.
After I started becoming more curious about my name, my parents told me that I was named after someone in my family who had died at a young age. Here lately for the past year or so, I have had the strangest urge to know more about my family member from where I received my name. That persons Father is dead now and I never have met his mother.

Is it weird that I want to know more about how my relative died, what were the causes and where their final resting place might be?

Thanks
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Old 11-05-2011, 06:26 PM
 
Location: The Circle City. Sometimes NE of Bagdad.
24,284 posts, read 25,788,403 times
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Not at all. I suggest Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records at Ancestry.com to help you delve into your families past. It helped us and will take you on quite a journey.
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Old 11-05-2011, 08:00 PM
 
Location: Out there somewhere...a traveling man.
44,546 posts, read 61,236,501 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by motormaker View Post
Not at all. I suggest Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records at Ancestry.com to help you delve into your families past. It helped us and will take you on quite a journey.
What motormaker says, you'll be amazed at what you discover. There is a Geneaology thread here on CD where there are people with similiar interests can help you too.
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Old 11-05-2011, 11:12 PM
bjh
 
59,746 posts, read 30,185,187 times
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You're not alone.

It's perfectly normal to want to find out about the people you come from or are related to, whether you just want to satisfy some curiousity or get hooked into a life long hobby.

It's all good.
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Old 11-06-2011, 12:33 AM
 
Location: Georgia, USA
36,972 posts, read 40,923,413 times
Reputation: 44898
Quote:
Originally Posted by worrywart23 View Post


Growing up I always would question my name, my teachers and friends where always commenting on how unique it was.
After I started becoming more curious about my name, my parents told me that I was named after someone in my family who had died at a young age. Here lately for the past year or so, I have had the strangest urge to know more about my family member from where I received my name. That persons Father is dead now and I never have met his mother.

Is it weird that I want to know more about how my relative died, what were the causes and where their final resting place might be?

Thanks
Have you googled your name? Or the name of the person for whom you are named?
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Old 11-06-2011, 01:30 AM
 
15,631 posts, read 26,117,738 times
Reputation: 30907
No, Worry -- not strange at all.

After my aged "aunt", who was actually a first cousin twice removed from me, saw Roots, she got interested in her genealogy. She hired someone to help her, and discovered her (and my) lineage back to 1749 in Pennsylvania. And she stopped. She found a great deal, joined the DAC (Daughters of the American Colonists) and was satisfied.

She was in her mid 80's, and this all had to be done by hand then....

Somehow, she infected me with the genealogy bug and I ran with it when I got older and had more time, since we have the internet. The more I found out the more I wanted to know... and sometimes it hurt.

It broke my heart to find out my 3rd great grandfather died a POW in the Civil War in Georgia.

It broke my heart to find two grand aunts in Germany, that were born and died years before my grandfather.

It broke my heart to find out my great grand uncle died of pneumonia in WWI in North Carolina.

And I have still have mysteries to solve.

So no -- you're not crazy. This is the start of your genealogy search, and you don't know what will set the fire off, and relight it when you need it most (my great grand uncle who died in WW1 did that for me).

You'll find out stuff you KNOW without a doubt is correct, and get mad at people who make assumptions that are wrong, just to fill in a blank.... and that's the crap that others are using and getting wrong...

But it's a fun journey.... enjoy!
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Old 11-06-2011, 09:34 AM
 
Location: Little Rock AR USA
2,457 posts, read 7,344,735 times
Reputation: 1899
Hey worrywart, guess what? You are totally normal and with that curiosity you will make a great genealogist. Enjoy, and happy hunting.
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Old 11-06-2011, 10:36 AM
 
7,492 posts, read 11,778,011 times
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You have every right to want to find out where you came from, and I say go for it!
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Old 11-06-2011, 10:54 AM
 
Location: Georgia, USA
36,972 posts, read 40,923,413 times
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Worrywart, you are also in a good position to avoid some of the problems faced by those of us who waited until after the older members of our families had passed on to begin our research.

I only knew one of my grandparents, my mother's mother, and I never talked to her about her family. Her grandfather was a young man during the Civil War. I wonder if he talked about it. Did my grandmother have stories about what happened in her community during that time?

I also had other relatives, aunts and uncles, who would have been great sources of information. All gone now.

My father was in the Navy on an LST off the coast of Normandy on D Day in WWII. He never really talked about his experiences until later in life, and then only because he found an association for former LST sailors and attended a few reunions. I went to one of those with him and got to tour an LST that has been turned into a museum. His "office" (he was a Storekeeper Second Class) was a niche containing a standup desk. The whole space was about the size of an old fashioned telephone booth. One of his responsibilities was buying food for the ship. One of the perks was that he got to be one of the first people to get off the ship when it came into port, so he could arrange for delivery of fresh food.

I was able to find a photo of the ship he was on with an internet search.

Tank Landing Ship LST

He liked to tell a story about an arrogant officer who did not want to pay attention to the NCO who was responsible for loading the tanks in the ship. The officer did not want to use all of the chains needed to secure each tank. The NCO had to explain that everyone on the ship might go for a very cold swim if a tank got loose while they were underway.

Stories like these will be gone forever if you do not get them now.

Interview all the old folks. For most you will not need to do much to get them to start talking. Consider doing actual videos as they talk. That way you have a permanent record and you do not have to take notes. There are inexpensive genealogy programs for organizing your material. Get one and use it from the beginning of your research. These programs allow you to link documents, photos, and audio and video files to the people you find. Document where you find every fact. This is one error that beginners commonly make. I did it, and now I do not know where I found a lot of what is in my tree. That means I need to go back and find the sources again. More work.

And do not forget to back everything up regularly. The best thing is to back up every time you add or change anything.

Genealogy can be a truly addicting hobby. Be prepared to have your concept of your own identity changed, sometimes to a major degree. I expected to find Englishmen, Scots, Irish, and a few Germans in my own family. It turns out the Germans may have been Swiss --- I am at a brick wall on that line right now. The French Huguenots threw me for a loop. I thought my families probably came to the New World in the mid nineteenth century. Nope, most had been here in the eighteenth century and quite a few earlier than that, so early that I cannot find when and where some got on the boat.

You are in for an amazing journey. Enjoy it!
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Old 11-08-2011, 01:23 PM
 
32,516 posts, read 37,001,849 times
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Suzy, thanks SO much for sharing that story. My father was also part of the D-Day invasion and like your dad spoke little about it until late in life.

After he died I went to the Palm Springs Air Museum and saw the version of the plane he parachuted out of. The museum is staffed with a lot of retired veterans and one of them took the time to show us around when I told him about my dad. That plane was so small. And fragile looking. And all I could think about was how young he was that day.

He once told me that every single boy in his high school expected to be killed during the war. Many of them were.

We are loosing our WWII vets at such a rapid pace now. It's sad to know how many stories are going with them.
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