52 Ancestors in 2018 - Week 1: Start

The prompt for week 1 is ‘START’. This prompt made me think back to how I got started on my family history research. The truth is that I have always been interested at some level on who my ‘people’ were. I can remember hearing comments as I was growing up similar to ‘she’s a SMITH’ or ‘she married a JONES’. My grandma also had handwritten notes with her parents’ names and their parents’ names—or as much as she knew about them. There was nothing formal—no family Bible, no photos of previous generations—just Grandma’s memories and her stories.

I knew even less about my dad’s side as both of my paternal grandparents died long before I was born. I knew their names, and that Grandma was from Germany and spoke German, and Grandpa was from Holland and did not speak German and got very annoyed when Grandma spoke German! (I’ve since found out that what I ‘knew’ was wrong. Both of my paternal grandparents were actually born in the USA!) I knew the WEISS surname was somehow connected to my dad’s family, but tI didn’t know how. And I had no idea, and no hope really, to ever go back beyond be great-grandparents, so I never pursued it.

Then one day, probably about 2002, after dropping my son off for swim practice, realized that instead of driving the 30 minutes home and turning around an hour later to drive the 30 minutes back, I could drive over and hang out at the library 10 minutes away! And as it turned out, it was the branch that housed the genealogy collection! I didn’t go planning to use the genealogy collection, but I had 90 minutes to fill, so I started browsing the shelves. I found a book by Robert P Sweiringa listing all of the Dutch households in the U.S. I’m not sure of the title, but I believe it must have been "Dutch Households in U.S. Population Censuses, 1850, 1860, 1870: An Alphabetical Listing by Family Heads”. Whatever the title, I found a Jacob KOLK living in Madison County, Illinois in the 1870 census listing! I was so excited! He had four sons, and I was able to find them in later censuses, and to link them to my grandfather! From there, I was off!

I’ve learned a lot about the process of doing genealogy since I made that discovery. I know I need to source my findings; to take good notes about what I’ve found and where I’ve found it. But I didn’t know that then. I only knew that I’d found them—my ancestors! I don’t have notes about what I found, and truthfully, I probably don’t need those notes. I have copies of the actual census records. But just the same, I wish I had a copy of that page, if only to help me remember how far I’ve come. Next time I go to the library, I think I will look for the book so that I can make a copy of the page!

I still haven’t traced the family back to Holland, and in a way I’m right back where I was back in 2002—feeling there is no hope to ever tracing the family back into Holland. But I’ve traced other branches of the family, including one branch back to Italy, so I will never say never. It just takes one breakthrough. I just have to START!

To learn more about my 52 Ancestors in 2018 project, read my introductory blog post.