They say that when an old person dies a library burns down and as a genealogist no words could be better spoken. Grandparents are the buildings blocks, the foundation even, for any family tree. They are such a wealth of information for anyone fortunate enough to still have them at the time of their genealogical journey. Grandparents are that one remaining link to the past. However some grandparents might not be so keen to talk about certain aspects of the past. They would rather some skeletons were not brought out of the cupboard. This does need to be respected to a certain degree as some memories can be too painful to recall. You don’t have to ask anything complicated. Just simple questions like who were your parents, who were your grandparents or even where did you grow up? Little things like that.
I was very fortunate to have had three of my grandparents when I first started researching and they were happy to talk about their background to a certain degree. To be able to then share my discoveries with them was special. The reason I say “to a certain degree” is due to the fact that one grandfather never spoke about who his father was and the other grandfather never seemed to want to talk about my grandmother, and my fourth grandparent, Lila. I suppose losing Lila in the way that he did was probably too painful. I always had to ask wider family members about her and I still do now that Tom is no longer with us. Even now I still don’t think I could have approached such a subject with him if he were here. He knew I was researching her family but no questions were ever asked. That was his way.
It’s been an immense privilege that I was able to have had one grandfather for 21 years of my life and another for almost 24. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about them in some capacity. I could end this post with some fancy poem or quote but I’m not going to. I’m simply proud to say that three of the world’s best grandparents’ could be called mine.
Until next time everyone!
Shannon :-)
