ANCESTORS WERE PEOPLE TOO!
by George Morgan

As the last-born child of my generation, it was my misfortune to have missed knowing a number of my relatives. Some either died before I was born or they died when I was too small to have remembered or known them well. Nevertheless, family stories have come down to me. "Along Those Lines ..." will talk this week about how family stories contribute to our genealogy.

Recently I've had occasion to talk to two of my relatives, each of whom shared a story with me. I'd like to share them with you because they illustrate the value of interviews, both in-person and telephone style, and the importance of preserving stories as part of your genealogy research.

My aunt Penelope Weatherly of Burlington, NC, celebrated her 84th birthday in January. We got together in Florida the day before her birthday for a marvelous visit. During our time together, I asked her to talk about her parents. She told me that her mother -- my maternal grandmother -- was "a clown." She had a wonderful sense of humor, shared jokes and laughed with her four daughters, and loved my grandfather deeply. My aunt told me that my grandmother was persuaded to spend Christmas, 1947, with her own sisters in Georgia, and that my grandfather had to remain at home. It was a lonely Christmas for him. It also was his last, as he died in April of 1948. I learned that my grandmother never forgave herself for not spending that last Christmas with her husband, and that much of life's joy left her after that. This story made an indelible impression on me and taught me much about my grandmother that I had never known.

On a cheerier note, I spoke by phone with my first cousin Penny Frank of St. Mary's, GA. She is the niece and namesake of my aunt Penelope. I asked her what she recalled of this same grandmother's sisters. She recounted a family tale about three of the sisters having traveled from NW Georgia to the beach by train. There they saw some lovely live crabs for sale. They decided to purchase some and take them home on the train. They had booked accommodations on a sleeper car -- a train car with upper and lower berth beds with privacy curtains. During the night, our great aunt Emma Dale (always a jokester) decided to play a prank on her sister, Anna. She reached under the privacy curtain on Anna's berth and pinched her bottom. Anna woke up with a scream. She immediately began screaming, "The crabs are loose on the train! The crabs are loose!" Needless to say, the conductor came running, and the rest of the sleeper car was in pandemonium. And ... Aunt Emma Dale was in the doghouse with her sisters for a week.

What these stories do for me is bring these people to life. These stories add another dimension of humanity to my relatives. They make me realize that my ancestors and relatives aren't just names on a pedigree chart or a family group sheet. They were individuals with likes and dislikes, complex relationships with other people, and senses of humor. They tell me, too, about the times in which they lived, the way they traveled, the way they spent their time, and their relationships with their family members.

The way we learn the facts about our ancestors and hear these stories is by interviewing relatives. Leave no stone unturned! Certainly, you can't learn everything in one sitting. I like to use "the installment plan." In almost every conversation, I try to turn the conversation to "what can you tell me" or "what is your recollection of ..." or "what was so-and-so like" questions. Open-ended questions requiring more than yes or no answers are best. Sometimes these casual conversations give me leads to research elsewhere. Sometimes they raise more questions than they answer. But they always provide me with a more human insight into my family.

These stories and the telling of them are family traditions. If they are not recorded in some way, they will be lost. And when they are lost, some of the sparkle and perspective is lost forever.

What stories do you know? Are you recording the family stories as part of your family history? Are you interviewing all of your relatives? Why not?

Happy hunting!
George

This week, I'm pleased to tell you about a wonderful Internet WWW site for information about Vital Records in the United States and Related Territories. Elizabeth Orsay has a magnificent Web site at http://www.inlink.com/~nomi/vitalrec/index.html that you really must visit. Here you will find an index for each state and territory, under which you will find every county listed. Addresses and prices for each type of vital record are listed. She has also compiled a fine collection of hyperlinks to other sites of interest related to vital records.