Immigration and family roots

I found migration to be a very interesting topic. There has certainly been a lot of that not just in my own life but in the lives of my ancestors. I know this because I was given a pile of paperwork and a pedigree chart about six years ago by the family record keeper. As I discussed in one of my recent discussion board posts, I have moved around a lot for many different reasons. When I was a child, my parents were in the military and we moved around several times when they got stationed at a new base. When I became an adult, I was also in the military and then after I separated from the military, I married a man who was in the military. And then my final move was by choice; I was finally ready to settle down and stay in one place.

However, this post isn’t about me. It’s about my ancestors. It’s funny that Pat put up a post about tracing family roots. I just recently went to Salt Lake City on vacation and we visited the temple square visitor’s center. If you’ve ever been there, you’d know that it’s a fabulous place. Inside this visitor’s center, I found an area specifically dedicated to genealogy as Mormons are very into tracing family roots. As they walked me through the basics on how to get started, I remembered that pile of paperwork that was given to me six years ago. I realized that I should probably get started right away on a family tree and when I got home, I got out all my paperwork and tried to get organized. However, when I realized how much work it was going to be, I put it aside again. As soon as I finish this class, I will have a six week break between graduation and the beginning of my Master’s program so I will start working on it then. I’m so excited!

It all started in September 2005 when my maternal grandfather died in Texas. At the wake, I met so many family members I didn’t even know I had. There was this one very old person I got to talking to and it turns out, he is my great uncle. He said that his life’s work was our family’s genealogy but he was sad because none of the young folk seemed interested in taking over for him. They were all busy with their lives and had other hobbies. He was afraid he would pass on and no one would care about our family tree. I was immediately interested and when I told him so, he told me he would bring me everything he had. At the funeral, he brought me so much stuff that I had to mail most of it back to myself. We kept in contact via email and I promised I would work on it as soon as I had the time but somehow I wound up getting too busy and forgot all about it. I feel that it is my duty not only to this man but to my family to keep these records and continue to work on my family tree so I can pass this along to my children and their children. And now, thanks to the LDS church, I have more resources at my fingertips than I know what to do with.