Category: The Present

Hello, whoever might be out there reading this.

When I started this blog back in 2017, I was so determined to extend my grandpa’s family history back as further than my grandparents were able to. I had notes from their conversations with relatives about people who had died decades before, murky recollections from their own memories, and a random collection of photos of people but no indication of who they might be. I was so committed to putting together as much information as I could.

I have made a lot of progress since 2017 and even since I last updated this blog in 2019. I’ve been able to make contact with several people from different branches in my family and found some documents from my grandparents research decades ago that had been forgotten. There’s also been a lot of life that has happened in the present, both good and bad. Some of that life forced me to push my genealogy research to the back of my closet. From getting engaged during the COVID-19 pandemic, changing careers, moving house, and going back to school to get a Master’s degree, I didn’t have much bandwidth to focus on the past.

However, with all of these life changes, I finally feel stable in my personal and professional life. I recently have found myself dipping my toes back in to genealogy. And now? I’m 31 pages into my compilation of research, with hopes to have it ready to be sent out to my relatives by the end of the year. As I go through the process of finishing it up, I will be uploading a few more posts here.

I still have a lot of blanks I’d like to fill eventually, but I’m proud of the progress I’ve made and I can’t wait to share more!

Thank you for reading,

Britt

I have just come off of the first gap I’ve had in posting these posts. It isn’t that I’ve lost interest in the subject or the blog, but sometimes I just have to take a step back.

Looking back at my ancestors is more than looking back at a bunch of names photos. One of my favorite aspects is connecting the names to the faces, but it can also cause me a lot of anxiety. I’m a naturally inquisitive person so I make it my mission to find as many details I can about my ancestors. I research and follow their movements so close that I get attached, in a way, to these people I have never met. From their birth to death, I search for everything. And sometimes it just all piles up.

I’ve always been a nervous person, or maybe anxious is a better word. I’ve also always seemed to surround myself with death, or things related to death. I’ve always loved murder mysteries, I am an avid watcher of Investigation Discovery and true crime documentaries, and true crime podcasts. Along with that goes my genealogy research. My research has brought up some sad material many times. From news articles about my three times great grandfather being electrocuted to death while working to another about my great-great grandmother’s cousins being involved in a car-on-train accident that killed two in the car while the other two were serious injured. Bertha Zelma Smith was only 14 when she died. That article in particular described the anguish the family was feeling in detail. That on top of plane crash deaths, family abandonment, abuse allegations and a mile-long list of illness-caused death for even young children eats away at optimism I held for whatever family group I’m investigating. Coupled with frequent trips to cemeteries, sometimes on a treasure hunt in the last place I knew someone was to have lived, it’s like I’m constantly surrounded by death and depressing statistics. It’s heavy stuff; it’s hard not to see just how fragile life is. It’s hard to not put myself in their place, not to let my anxieties get to me. I stress out, I freak out, and then I take a break and calm down. After 11 years of this, it’s become a routine of mine.

Maybe it would help if I didn’t get so emotional investided in these people. Maybe I should watch the Animal Planet instead of Investigation Discovery.  I could list maybes all day but I think it would be easier for everyone if I just chill out every once in awhile and focus on my cat and my boyfriend. Because even amongst all of the sad and tragic of the past I have floating in my head there are the positive things I have to hold as well. 

This weekend, my boyfriend and I went garage sale-ing. I found some Vera Bradley for a steal, a birthday present for my mom, and we managed to find one of those double papasan chair frames for basically nothing. We got lunch with my sister at a new restaurant and then next weekend we’re going to the zoo with my cousin and her beautiful baby girl. My new glasses come in next week. Also, my cat is still adorable. 

And I’m one step closer to finishing the family book.

Life is good, the past is the past, and I am going to be okay. 

Eleven year old me did not know what genealogy was.

In fact, the only reason I ever found out was because when signing up for 4-H project categories I had thought it involved rocks. My mom explained to me that it was genealogy, not geology. I went ahead and signed up for it. I was disappointed, but it was for the best. The judges were more impressed with my family history binder than they ever would have been with a glass box of rocks from my driveway.

That first project only went back to my great-grandparents. The next year, my great-great grandparents Nikola and Josephina Salay. The came over to America in 1912 on a ship the traveled from Hamburg to New York. With them came their two daughters, Josephine and Marija. The small family settled in Farrell, Pennsylvania where two more babies came along (my great-grandfather George and his brother John). But soon, Josephine would die. Then Marija, then John, then Josephine. But at the time I didn’t know any of this. At the time, all I had were two names: Nick and Josephine. I had a city, the one that Nick died in, and I had a wedding photo.

My middle/high school years came and went; one binder grew to four and I never added any Salay names to that project. I went to university but kept up my research because at that point it had become my favorite hobby. I sifted through notes from my grandparents’ own research 30 years prior and started piecing together what was still only pieces of what didn’t even look like puzzle. Seven years turned into 11 and then one day while on Ancestry I noticed a leaf wobbling next to a name that I originally didn’t even think was correct.

Little did I know, that leaf was exactly what I had been hoping for since I realized how enigmatic my family was.