Family Tradition

I have been studying my family's genealogy for many years now.

In fact there are times when I become obsessed (as my lovely wife will gladly tell me) and it is all I want to do.

But after a while you find that there are no more surprises. You hit one brick wall after another and you lose the will to keep looking.

So it was recently that I was considering ending my memberships and the various sites I use for my research.

But just tonight my daughter said she needed some information on members of our family you served in the military.

And there are more than a few!

My father was in the Air Force and served in Germany during Vietnam.
His brother was in Vietnam in the late 60's.
Their father was in the Army and was station in Panama during World War II.
My other grandfather was also in the Army and was in France during WWII.

I was showing her pictures and newspaper articles...even my grandfathers WWII duffel bag that still has his canteen, sandwich maker and other items he carried with him half-way around the world over 60 years ago.

So as I dug around for information the old genealogy bug bit me and I started going through my old files again.

It was then that I remembered a chance email from this past summer.

A distant relative had turned up doing research and was looking for information that I had. Our common ancestor was long gone, but I had the dates and info she needed. In exchange she said she had pictures of the person in question.

One problem.

She traveled during the summer and would not be to her home state until winter.

I was willing to wait.

Coincidentally, tonight as I was preparing to email her and see if she ever made it home I got an email with three pictures of my great aunt!



Its like finding a treasure!

Pictures of someone that you studied and know so much about, but never knew what they looked like!

My dad had never seen the pictures and didn't recognize his own aunt. He's going to show them to my grandmother (his mother) and see if she knows anyone else in the pictures.

I realize its not Indiana Jones finding the Holy Grail...but it gives me hope that there may be more discoveries and there might be more to my family than I already know after 10 years of research.

~ Glenn