A Good Month and a half on improvement of my Family Tree

First as of April 1^st the 1911 UK Census came out in Scotland on which I found my mother just 1 year old Plus cousins, Aunts and uncle with good information to move foreward Then I joined the Heritage Family Tree Web site and quickly found my cousin Wallace Hamilton, whose family my parents and I visited when they lived in Buffalo NY. I know I was a young teenager at the time (by a photo it might have been 1955) I don't remember such about the visit accept that Wallace's older sisters took me unwilly to a Public Pool at their mother's command and Talking with them as we wash the dishes one night and that we talked so much that their mother didn't think we did a very good job. Wallace and I E-mailed each other back and forth making corrections on each other's Family trees (I gave him access to my Family Tree on ancestry.com) Wallace ask me about my Aunt Vera, who I didn't know much about other than a few photos and what I remember from what my father had said through the years ( I always wish I asked more questions) I wrote to him that I would call our cousin Anne Reilly who also lives on Long Island.
    It turned out to be a very fortunate phone call I made to Anne who is the daughter of my Aunt Mary on my Father's side, for it seems that Aunt Vera's family lived down stairs from her sister Mary's family so Anne grew up with my Aunt Vera. One thing I learned is that Vera is the name everyone calls her, but her legal name is Sarah Veronica Boyle (Gallacher) which explains why I could not find her on scotlandspeople.gov.uk web site. Once I knew her name I found her marriage and Death Registries. My Aunts and my Father were all born in the United States and returned to Scotland, this I knew, Anne told me that her mother told her that she was about ten years old when the family returned to Scotland, Anne mother I knew was born in 1904 so I looked on ancestry.com at the passage list for ships returning to Scotland and found them on the Ship Numidian that traveled from Boston to Glasgow on 21 November 1913. Anne also said she had photos and newspaper clippings that she would send, I ask Anne if it was alright if Wallace Hamilton call her and she said it would be fine with her.
    So since April 1^st I added and subtracted people on my Family Tree a net gain of about 20 people and learned a little more about my family

Who Do You Think You Are- are Actor Steve Buscemi

This installment once again shows what you may find in your Family Tree might not be the Glory fruit, but a few rotten apples. Whatever you find will bring historical events that may have seemed not to concern you personally to have shaped the lives of your ancestors thereby shaping your life and the way your look at the world around you.

                   There is perhaps a lot of behind the scenes work not shown in the one hour (with AD’s) for it seem that they go ahead on very little information for I know in my own research going by name and age alone can lead you up the wrong tree, you cannot over verify your sources. Now I know they have to make it interesting to get people to do their own Genealogy (selling ancestry.com), but I wonder if maybe on the internet (like ancestry.com) they could show the techniques used to find and verify the Sources which maybe too long and boring for the TV show, but interesting and helpful to amateur Genealogists.         

Who do you think you are? Kim Catirall

Kim Catirall who I remember from as Samantha in “Sex in the City” was this week’s person on NBC’s “Who do you think your are?” Kim’s Focus was on her Grandfather who left her Grandmother and his three young daughters including Kim’s mother in Liverpool England in 1938. I had assumed that Kim was born in the US, but she is from Liverpool moving to New York many years ago. Kim’s mother just had one picture of him looking through some Curtains in an old photo. Kim went to Liverpool interviewing her Grandfather’s sister who only confirmed what she already knew. When Kim got back to her hotel she found that she had received a package with a Marriage registry for her Grandfather to another woman in 1939 in Durham England which is not far from Liverpool on the east coast of England (Liverpool is on the west coast) so she went to Durham. Where she found that he had four more children two girls and two boys, she interviewed one of the girls finding more photos and that he moved to Australia where he died in 1974.

               I try to see what lessons were to be learned from this program this one is that there are skeletons in every Family Tree, you have to accept them trying not to judge too unsympathetically for you can never know the full story and times change. Years ago poor people never thought of getting a divorce they just left is that any worst than all the people today who leave their mate just because they get bored, they are still leaving their children without a father.  As it happens both my Grandfathers left their families, on my father’s side he just took off for Ireland during the Irish revolt and was never heard of again. My mother had to quit school at nine years of age to help support her mother, little brother and sister. He did try to come back years later, but my uncle full-grown by then threw him out.  You have to remember that the times were bad even worse than the times are now and to judge is human, but to forgive divine.        

How I got started with the family Genealogy

I wish I started researching my family tree before my father died in 1982 so I could have gotten some serious answers out of him. My son Michael did ask him for a family tree, after his Grandfather he made up the rest. Lucky I do remember some stories he told me while I was growing up as did my mother about her side of the family. My parents both came to New York in 1929 from Scotland, so I have no relations nearby to as ask, but later starting in 1997 my wife and I began making trips to Scotland to see my cousins on my mother’s side and my mother’s brother Uncle Peter did tell me a lot of family stories if I could only remember them. It is important to get as much information from the older members of the family as possible, they may not think their stories are important, but everyone has a story to tell and future generations would like to read about where they came from.