Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Ancestry.com Solving Mysteries


I am having the most fun on Ancestry.com . There has always been a great deal of mystery around my paternal grandmothers mother, Mattie. Pictured above with me, don't we look alike?
Mattie had tried to run away with my grandmother and another man when my grandmother was just 3 years old. My grandmother's father came and got her and that was the last my grandmother saw of her mother for many years.

Through ancestry.com I was able to find Mattie, even though my grandmother had not only her first name wrong but her last too. It's been so fun unraveling the story of Mattie's life. She had a son, who I am still trying to find out about. It's possible I have aunts and uncle from him, I've never seen.

Mattie's isn't the only lost person in the family and I've been able to find them all and trace lines of my family back to prerevolutionary America. It's fascinating and I highly recommend it.

I had been using Ancestry.com without a membership for many years and not getting very far. Recently I was given a membership as a gift and it was amazing how much more I was able to access and how easy it is to compile family data.

This is not a sponsored post, I just felt compelled to share that it makes a great gift and is insanely fun to use yourself. Could be a good Valentine present for family.

2 comments:

Kelly J Kitchens Wickersham said...

Ohhhh I LOVE Ancestry.com!! And your mystery is sooooo intriguing!

You do look so much like her. Don't you LOVE that?!!! I, too, am the spitting image of my great-grandmother. Here is our side-by-side: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=117780797349&set=t.610597349&type=3&theater

That is me when I was 4 in 1972 and Georgie when she was 10 in 1895.

Elise Crane Derby said...

So cute. I wish there were pictures from back then of them smiling. They all look so stern and miserable.