Category: Family History

Transitions – Across the Generations 

My great-grandmother, Georgeanna Hargett Bruchey, was born 9 February 1863. She died in 1893 – just over a week past her 30th birthday.

Her son, my grandfather, passed away on 6 February 1959, and was buried on 9 February.

A grandson, my Uncle John, was killed in a car accident on 9 February 1946. He was 21 years old, and had been married just a week earlier.

One of her granddaughters, my Aunt Carrie, died on 6 February 1961. Her funeral was supposed to be on 9 February, but it was delayed until the 10th because of weather.

I don’t know if it is because of my family history research, or just because of my interest in the historical connections to dates. I have always been fascinated by the significance of those two dates in my family’s history.

Three generations. Of the four people, two were gone before I was born. I have only a few memories of my grandfather and Aunt Carrie.

Yet there is that connection, across the generations, that I remember every February.

Sandi

Remembering Aunt Fanny

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Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of my Aunt Fanny. Born Ruth Frances Bruchey, on 10 January 1917, she was known to all as Frances or Fanny.

She was the sixth child, fourth daughter, of Charles Edward and Carrie May McKinney Bruchey. My father, the third child, was about 6-1/2 years older. Four more children followed.

Daddy’s family was Old German Baptist, or Dunkard. The Old German Baptists are a “Plain” people, often confused with the Amish. My grandfather was an elder in the church.

Aunt Fanny was an excellent seamstress and an excellent cook. She kept a garden and canned its bounty until shortly before she died at age 94.

She was a hard-working woman, raised with the practical skills of a farming family.

But I remember the other side – the mischievous side of her. The twinkle in her eye and the wrinkled nose when she smiled. She composed funny little poems. Funny, but never hurtful or malicious.

She was a wonderful role model with a generous heart.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Fanny!

Love,

Sandi

 

Tea and Toast

My older sister used to fix tea and toast for me. It’s always been my go-to “meal” when I couldn’t eat anything else.

I haven’t been feeling well the past couple of days. As usual, I look to tea and toast (along with bananas, rice and applesauce) for sustenance.

It brings back memories of my childhood, and that’s a good thing!

Sandi 

PS  I’ll hopefully be back next week with a regular blog post.

Getting Started

I have so much paper and so many digital documents! I need to sort everything and figure out who belongs to each document. I’ve tried to use logical file names, but I may re-visit that.

The next step is to enter each person, starting with me, into the database.

So that brings me to my next problem: I have Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic; neither one is the latest version. I had intended to start over with RootsMagic 6 (over two years ago!). I think I’ll stay with that plan and upgrade to RM7.

(NOTE: Legacy is also highly recommended, but I want to stay with what I’ve got.)

Documentation and source citation has always been my weak (as in very weak!) area. I need to look at some examples to make the concept click in my head. Then I think I will be fine.

As I go through this process, I’ll cross-reference my Ancestry trees and download any documents I have attached there.

I think this is why I’ve been procrastinating the past few years. I wanted to do it right from the start; I didn’t want to have to go back again to fix things. The result, though, is that nothing really got done.