Cousins! Kissing Cousins! Really?

The other evening I was having a nice quiet evening at home surrounded by plastic sheeting hanging from the ceiling (that's another blog) and enjoying the NFL opening season game when the phone rang. On the other end was granddaughter 3 who is daughter 2 of daughter 3. Still with me? After a little grandfather - granddaughter banter, mostly by me, she finally said, "Grandpa, I need help with my genealogy." Since that is a topic near and dear to my heart, I said, "Sure, what do you want to know?" She asked for our birthdates, birth places, realized she didn't need our death dates and then went on to ask about other relatives. After getting my parents, she asked, "Who are your dad's parents?" I shared all of the relevant information with her, followed by my mother's parents. Then it was off to JoAnn's parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. Remember, this was done a little randomly, meaning we didn't always follow a family line, and I'm several hundred miles away on the telephone. When I asked questions the answers were sometimes a little vague. She concurred she was building a pedigree chart, but I wondered why we went to great-grandparents on only one side. That was when she shared she wanted to go back 8 generations and would need to call again! Eight generations is a lot of names.

The next morning I talked to our daughter, her mother, Suzanne, and asked the burning question, "How does Lexi's pedigree chart look." I got this guffaw from Suzanne and she finally said that Lexi came to her and showed that JoAnn and I were cousins. We're not, we aren't from Kentucky (apologies to my family in Kentucky), and were not even remotely from related families. Not that progenitors haven't done that, but not for over 300 years as near as I can determine.

JoAnn and I had a good laugh over the idea we were cousins - maybe even "kissing cousins." This is what makes grandparenting so much fun. We get to see how children interpret what is said and how differently they see the world from us. It is a joy for us to have such wonderful grandchildren and children. Not that we are biased.

Cemetery Hopping

Last weekend JoAnn and I were in Modesto, California visiting my dad, his wife, and my sisters. We had a wonderful time with family and did lots of things together. As we got ready to leave I looked at the work related things I could take with me and placed each one aside as I packed on Thursday evening. In at the end I just took my iPad, which was perfect.

One of the things JoAnn and I wanted to do was see local cemeteries where our family are buried. On Saturday JoAnn and I went out the Lakewood Memorial Cemetery in Empire. My grandparents are buried there along with JoAnn's parents. It's probably been 30 years since I was at the cemetery and seen my grandparents site. I had never been to JoAnn's parents site. It's been a long time since she was there. We had to go to the office to find their grave site.

On Monday we drove up to Dixon, CA, not far from Davis, CA and stopped at the Silveyville Cemetery where a number of JoAnn's mother's family are interred. The secretary at the cemetery was so helpful. They keep all of their records on cards that are individually typed. In fact they had an old fashioned manual typewriter of the kind that JoAnn and I learned to type on in the early 1960s. I haven't seen one of those for years - especially in an office. They had a computer too.

As I stated, the secretary was incredibly helpful. Each 3 x 5 card had detailed information on the front and the location the back that listed the individual and individuals who were buried adjacent to the person's card. As JoAnn looked at the back of the cards she found additional people that she had heard her mother talk about, or had met at some point during her childhood. What turned out to be a search for a few people turned out to be a search for many people. The secretary photocopied all of the cards for us, located all of the gravestones on a map and sent us out, but not before offering to have someone help us. Fortunately while this was going on I went out and walked around and got the lay of the land. It was, by today's standards, a small cemetery. We found and photographed all of the gravestones.

It was fun to spend a day together doing family history. Now we have work to do at home to fit the names we found to the family. It made a great weekend with our family even more memorable.