family dead ends
every once in a while, i pick up searching for my roots. i get lost in the virtual stacks of online information, and go deep till i have to come up for air. once in a while, i find something. last night, i found something incredible.
so -- for years, i was told (or at least given the impression) that my grandfather's brother died at a young age and didnt marry. while searching records online, i found a 90% match for his brother, who did not die before marrying. who did have a wife and 2 kids. they just didnt stay in the county where they were born.
i've emailed the source of the info to introduce myself and to hope that any bad blood between those families is long gone. my dad's cousin (if indeed this is the family i was looking for) also died in his early 60s, which confirms that the men in my dad's family die relatively young. so far, that's 4/5 men that i know of that died early. the 5th is my dad.
every time i hit a wall, i go digging somewhere else for a while. i've gotten my grandmother's grandparents, which was no easy feat. i've found some other interesting tidbits, too. Things like, when my grandmother was 2, they were living with my then widower great-great grandfather, who was then 56. my great-great grandmother had died some many years before. this explains so many photos with my great great grandfather and my great grandfather and grandmother -- it always looked like they were together, because they were!
