At some point in our lives, we wonder about our history and those people of our past. We become more curious about the mysteries and the "nothing else is known" folk. Some times it is merely asking the right people the right questions but with some hints and tips, it gets easier knowing what to expect. 

In our family, it took the right cousin asking her uncle what he remembered hearing from his father. The knowledge of the past will be lost if not shared with someone who can record the events and pass along the information. I am yet hoping my Aunt Ruth will be passing on to me her memories of her childhood. My dad has many unhappy memories and those are to be known as well. Often the picture that one paints of a relative is not the same as remembered by another. Be fair but consider the circumstances. 

After my mother's mother died, my dad asked if I wanted her boxful of old things. It was the old family Bible, their personal Bibles, albums of pictures all the way back to barely visible tintypes. When she had been in the nursing home, her only effects were a few boxes of powder, a few handkerchiefs, her little television. No one knew of these treasures until my dad brought them to me. It was there that I discovered the three sisters had a brother who died a few days after his birth. That sure explained a lot about the bitterness between grandma and grandpa. She left the Pennsylvania Dutch community and family to marry "outside" and could never return. Their early life in the oilfields of Oklahoma were bleak and most difficult.

I sent copies of those photos to the last living sister but she did not recognize any of the unknown faces. The best had a note on the back, "Him and his wife." The copies have survived much better than the old originals. Make sure your stored items are in a water and weather proof container. You won't get another chance if they are destroyed or damaged. Identify the contents just in case someone else needs to come looking later on.

The best advisors say to go in-person, take laptop computer and a recorder. Be formal and ask permission. Oh sure. Most relatives aren't where we can go and visit though we do when it is possible. The best I can do with Aunt Ruth is to encourage her to write or email messages to me. So far, I have one page. My dad mentioned that there was a surprise on his birth certificate but then he didn't say what it was and it has not appeared from anywhere. You just gather what you can from where you can. One of the things I want to accomplish is to get a copy of that mysterious birth certificate.

Consider all information to be "for the record." That is what you are after. Ask for all things remembered even when dates are long forgotten. Use a recorder, take notes but do what is most comfortable. Older folks often have trouble hearing and speaking and a recorder would allow you to turn up the volume later when you are transcribing your notes. Don't try to add a flair to the story, just record what you find.

We had a landlady whose family was putting together their history. Come to find out another part of the family had been doing the same but finished by selling the story rights to a television producer. They portrayed the other family's mother as a prostitute coming out west to work in a saloon. Oh talk about hostility. The actual facts were pretty boring and had been spiced up to sell a super story.

I was always afraid that there was some bad secret to my grandmother's coming to the United States. She married a Navy man and had two children. Then she found out that he was already married and had other children. That's where the story got foggy. The accounts I had heard said that she was the servant to the family that adopted her and two children. Turns out this adopted family really was the family of her "husband" and they lived with members of the family until the kids were grown. She was not the servant we had thought but she did all the cooking and cleaning. When "cousin" tried to tell me that my dad's dad had committed suicide, I said that I knew better. That inspired the questions asked of the only living person who had ever heard the true story. It did much to ease my father's mind but he was still left knowing that his dad chose to live with his "other family" rather than my dad, his sister and their mother. But he was relieved of believing that his dad had killed himself instead of choosing a family.

As the details were put together, Grandmother was probably not truthful about the details. Ruth's birth certificate has not been found. There were other photos of George the senior but he was a fellow helpful around the garden and with a big old grin. Who knows?