8 26 pm pst [ long ago ]
One after another, I track down distant relatives,
inform them of our consanguinity, collect birt, marriage and death dates,
file and store.
This is Henry, my mother's mother's father's father.
I've mentioned him previously. I
know about his parents, and their journey to the States. With the last names Weber and Schmitt, I
have little hope of tracing their roots in Germany.
Henry was from a large family which has given me
hundreds of living relatives all over the country. If I could trace his
lineage in Germany, I'm sure I would quickly discover thousands of living
cousins around the world.
In genealogy, people are reduced to dates and
locations, little facts summed up in a few words. I can tell you where my
great grandparents married, where they lived in 1904, and what they did
for a living in 1920. This is all of interest to me and not to anyone
else, but these tidbits aren't the crux of my research. I live for the
duality of the search, the mystery, the detective work, and the discovery
of new living relatives -- people with whom I have a tenuous connection
and yet who freely share teir lives with me. They are so delicious.
December 1997
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