MY VIEW
Barbara Jezioro: Connecting relatives is easy on the Internet
About 45 years ago, as an elementary student, I received a homework assignment to make a family tree, and that, I believe, started my interest in genealogy. I can still remember eagerly asking my dad about his family and carefully recording the names of grandparents and great grandparents, none of whom were still living.
I found out a number of things that I didn’t know, namely that my great grandfather was a Union soldier who was wounded in the Civil War and that dad had a brother who “disappeared” in Central America.
My mom’s parents had emigrated from Bavaria, but mom could tell me little more than that and the name of the ship that her mother had arrived on. Apparently, her parents rarely spoke about their past; not surprising considering that most immigrants had fled difficult situations that were often mired in poverty or worse.
Since that time, so many years ago, I’ve always wanted to know more about my roots. Like most other people, however, I didn’t have to time to visit cemeteries, write to county clerks and research various library collections, often in different parts of the country.
Today, things have changed and more than 60 percent of us have access to the Internet, a fact that, I’m sure, has fueled a renewed interest in family research and enabled common people to find their immigrant ancestors.
During the past couple of years, I was able to trace my paternal great grandfather to his birthplace in Pottenstein, Germany, and with on-line help I was able to discover the names and places associated with my paternal great great grandparents as well. Best of all, I was able to solve the 70-year-old mystery of my lost uncle and find a new set of relatives in the process.
Using the resources available at Ancestry.com, I was first able to trace my lost Uncle Anthony through on-line military records, which placed him in Nicaragua in the 1930s. Then, I found records from California indicating that he had a Nicaraguan wife, now deceased, as well as a deceased son who had lived in Los Angeles.
I thought I had reached an impasse until amazingly, I discovered a copy of a border crossing for his young daughter, Ida. I thought I’d never be able to find out more about her until I checked out Ancestry’s California marriage records and was able to cross reference her maiden name with her married name.
Last September, my husband and I decided to travel to Malibu and Palm Springs to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. While we were there, we were able to detour to Los Angeles to meet my cousin Ida and her family. It turns out that Ida’s father, my Uncle Anthony, was murdered in Nicaragua just before she was born.
This was the first time that Ida had met any of her father’s family and I know that we both had tears in our eyes.
Meeting a new first cousin and her family was certainly the highlight of our trip and staying in touch with her will be a joy for years to come.
In recent months, I’ve been trying to gather information on my mom’s side of the family and have been stymied more than a few times.
With the help of the Internet, I’ll keep trying because after finding Ida, I know that genealogical research is not only information to be filed away in a folder. For me, amazingly it led to a new living family member, someone whom I’m happy to know as my cousin and my friend.
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