Start: #52ancestors

Rhoda Ellen Cryder Smith (and friend)
1886-1972

Fifty-two ancestors in 52 weeks.

That's the mission should you choose to accept it. Well, I do! Just one week into the new year, I am already feeling like this year will be especially busy, so why take this on now? Have you ever noticed you're more productive and efficient the busier you are? Well, that definitely applies to me when I don't have time to procrastinate! So, whether it is in spite of -- or inspired by -- an already busy year I have added Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge to my list of goals for this year.

What is 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, you may be thinking. To quote Amy it is "a series of weekly prompts to get you to think about an ancestor and share something about them. The guesswork of "who should I write about" is taken care of." The prompt for Week 1 is "Start." I didn't have to ponder this for more that a second or two before decided to start with how I got started with genealogy in the first place.

My family moved quite a bit as I was growing up and maybe longing for a "place" contributed to what made genealogy interesting to me, but the truth is I was intrigued by my ancestors before I even knew the word genealogy. I was fortunate live near both sets of grandparents when I was very young. My favorite pasttime when visiting my maternal grandmother was to get out an old suitcase full of photographs and pore over them, asking "Who's this?" "Where was this?" and many other questions. For me, that suitcase contained a treasure more precious than gold or rubies. 

Oregon Sentinel (Jacksonville, OR).
24 July 1886, pg. 2.

Later we had moved to a state that was experiencing a lot of unwelcome migration from other parts of the country. The state was issuing a ceremonial certificate for "natives" and my 5th grade teacher suggested we do that as part of a school project. Not having been born in that state, I wasn't eligible and I went home and complained about this to my mother. Now, whatever gene I inherited that made me interested in my ancestors, skipped a generation because my mother does not share this passion. She did, however, know that my great grandmother had been born in that state and encouraged me to ask my "native" classmates how many of them could make that claim. That was a much smaller group and made me feel better about having a nomadic childhood. I still had roots! 

Galvanized by this tidbit of information, I was prompted to write to a great uncle who sent me a hand-drawn family tree. Suddenly names of people I'd never met were connected to me on a chart. It would be another decade, however, before I was able to pursue genealogy in a more dedicated way. After graduating from college, one of my dearest friends, Monika, and I decided to take a genealogy class together. This was long before the internet, so every Tuesday evening, fortified by dinner at Arby's first, we decamped to the local Family History Center to do research using microfilm we'd borrowed from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Suddenly all those faces from the old suitcase and names from the hand-drawn tree began to come into focus. I was on my way!