"Just Another Picture of 'Just Another Distant Aunt.'" To Whom?

We all have them.  Me as many as anyone!  I have over a hundred pictures of great-aunts and great-uncles that go without much attention from me.  Why?  Isn't it obvious?  They are "just distant aunts and uncles". . . to me.  My bias is toward researching and giving attention to my "ancestors," not just "relatives." 

Then it happens, someone comes along less selfish than me.  More thoughtful.  More considerate.  He posts a picture on FamilySearch.Org of one of his "just another distant aunt."  He is thinking less inward and more outward.  What can he do that might be good for someone else?  What can he do that is good for the hobby of genealogy and therefore all genealogists?  

Then I come along and find the picture he posted of his "just a distant aunt."

Meet my 2xg-grandmother Martha Porter (nee. Scott, 1825-1909).  This is the first picture I have ever found or seen of her.  My newfound cousin's "just a distant aunt" is my gg-grandmother!  

I owe him so much for posting this picture publicly.  I think he is the type of guy who would appreciate me paying it forward.  I need to go start uploading pictures of "just distant aunts" and "just distant uncles."

Copyright © 2021 by Kevin W. Walker

A Reflective Essay about Family and Why Genealogy

I am one of those people who believes we are all genetically born with certain behavioral predispositions and predilections.  I still believe in free will!  I don't believe these born-with desires determine our choice and behaviors, they just influence them.

I was born with a profound appreciation and affection for family.  It is in my blood.  It is in my soul.  I have always loved visiting relatives, and this was noticeable even when I was very young, I couldn't wait to visit family, and didn't want to leave after visiting.  I was happy.  Everyone one else seemed happy.  The adults seemed happy.  The kids seemed happy.  I felt loved.

When I was little we were blessed to have my mom's parents and two sisters and their families living within driving distance of our home in northern California.  But since my Dad was a Nebraska transplant the bulk of his relatives were back in Nebraska.  He grew up in a family of nine kids and seven close cousins, and each of them having families of their own. So in the summer of 1968 we packed up the old blue Ford station wagon and drove the short 1677 miles from Fremont, California to Dix, Nebraska for a Walker family reunion.  I was in heaven, pure heaven.  There must have been forty of us, everyone was smiling, and laughing, and having a great time!

Late that evening, as my eyelids grew heavy, my Dad's cousin Bob Wistrom scooped me up into his arms and carried me to the car.  I started to cry.  Bob said "What's the matter?"  I said "I don't want to leave!"  Bob's eyes welled with tears and he dried the tears on my cheek with the back of his hand.  And we drove the long, long 2000 miles home.

This experience had a huge effect on me.  The value of family grew even more in my heart and never wavered.  But as time passed, things happened, things change, as they always do.  My Dad started with two brothers in California, but one passed, and the other moved to Arizona.  My Mom's family started out close, but they too began to spread out, chasing their own dreams, and their own predilections.  Even my parents and brother moved, and then, after growing up and marrying, so did I.  This was my curse -- no family close, anywhere.

But it did not stop.  Soon my grandparents' generation passed on.  Then my parents.  I had two kids, and then as is normal, they got married and had kids and moved.  And now I am the grandparent, and my curse continues.  I only see my immediate family once or twice a year.  And my extended family?  Well, we talk on Facebook.  That is about the extent of it.

"Kevin, why do you do genealogy?"  This is why -- to defeat my curse.  To fill my familial love tank.  I feel love for, and dare I say, even love from every ancestor I find.  I knew none of our ancestors' names, none of my family did.   My contemporary relatives were all getting the love they needed from each other, there was no pragmatic rationale to look back at their roots, beyond curiosity.

But I am different.  I am uncovering our ghosts, waking them up and giving them new life.  Finding their images, cleaning them off.  Telling their histories, both good and bad.  I can feel their familial love filling up my tank, as their names and stories, that were covered in decades and centuries of darkness, get to see the light of day.

My predisposition and predilection for family drives me to fight off a curse of familial loneliness.  I am selfish that way.  But I can sense the smiles of my long dead relatives, as they are remembered for whatever reason.


Copyright © 2020 by Kevin W. Walker

Dutton Letters: An Introduction

I have been procrastinating writing this entry into my blog for over a week now.  Not because it is anything negative!  But because I am at a loss for how I want to craft my words.  My emotions have been crowding out my ability to think logically.

This blog has paid me back time and time again.  Distant cousins googling their ancestors or their surnames or whatever; they find me and write me, then they offer to share (some are only interested in what I can give them, but we won't mention them). Such is the case with "the Dutton letters."

As my regular readers know I am particularly proud of my Dutton ancestors.  After reading my blog I was contacted by a descendent of the Duttons -- Linda, a 3rd cousin once removed.  She said she had a lot to share.  Boy howdy!  She had family artifacts!  Letters, pictures, and more.  All I had to offer her was my research.  She was happy to get it!  She blesses me, and we have become friends, albeit 2200 miles apart.

She sent me the first batch of family letters.  Yes, she sent them to me, via registered mail, the ORIGINALS!  God bless her!  Mostly from the 1920s, one or two as late as the 1940s, eleven in total.  The only original she did not send me was an 1863 Civil War letter from my 3xg-grandmother Nancy Smith Dutton to my 2xg-uncle Harvey Dutton.  She plans on donating that to a museum, so she sent me a photocopy and a transcription.  I will take it!  Thank you!!!

The loss for words has returned.  So have the tears of joy.  Yeah, I am an emotional guy, so what.

Over the next several days I will be posting pictures and transcriptions of all these letters, beginning with the Civil War letter tomorrow, on the occasion of the blogging prompt "Amanuensis Monday." All the letters deal with family relations, which could explain why they were kept by Linda's parents and grandparents.

Understandably, I have read the letters, and two things jumped out at me.  The first is kind of hard to explain.  We as genealogists and family historians talk about the happiness of the finds and the discoveries, especially the difficult ones that we had to work our hardest to get through the figurative "brickwall."  But I think I have discovered something even more rewarding -- the confirmation that what I presumed about these people was correct.  Let me explain.  We all create images in our heads of these people as we research them.  Who they were, what they were like, what they believed, why they made the choices they did, etc.  As long as we don't promote our presumptions as fact, it can actually aid in research.  But then, to actually read in their own handwriting and their own words a confirmation that the presumptions I made about them were correct?  The feeling is indescribable.  Nothing else like it!  "Rewarding" does not say enough.  It fills the researcher with joy.

The second thing that jumped out at me in these letters is these are real people just like us, doing what they need to do and what they want to do.  They work and they relax, experience highs and lows, illnesses and well-being, losses and triumphs.  Too, too often when we do this research, these people becomes names and dates -- static, objective, without identities.  So wrong.  These are living people, progressing in real time in their daily lives in their era, living subjectively, and full of identity and individualism.  Time and custom might restrict how well we are able to get to know them as persons.  But they never were less.  They never are less.

Linda says she has more, she just needs to find the time to gather it all.  If you are a Walker relative of mine in all likelihood she is your cousin too.  She is not just blessing me by sharing, she is blessing you too.  From all of us Walkers to you cousin Linda, thank you.


Copyright © 2015 by Kevin W. Walker

When Genealogy Records become Family Treasures

So much of my public genealogy is done as "cousin bait."  This very blog included!  I have documented how it has rewarded me, as both genealogists and non-genealogists find my blog with search engines, connections are made, research is sent to me, family records, some in my ancestor's own handwriting.

One of the cousins I discovered by continually crossing paths researching the same family lines, is Tony from Arizona.  Tony introduced me to the records of his grandmother Jennie (Hall) Long (1879-1968) who was my great-grandaunt and a family historian in her own right!

And so here is where we cross the line.

I emailed Tony to find out what great-aunt Jennie had on on her great-grandfather Joseph Hall of New Hampshire?  There are a few and I am trying isolate specifically which one is our ancestor.  He sent me this --

-- A copy of aunt Jennie's notes in her own writing.  Now keep in mind my great-grandaunt was born in 1879 and died in 1968.  How old is this?  At least fifty years.  Maybe a hundred.  And look at the words on the page.  She called her granduncle Israel "Uncle Billy."  My 3xgreat-granduncle Israel Woodbury Hall was nicknamed "Billy."  How would I have known that if it wasn't for this genealogy record?

We have crossed the line where a family history document has become a family treasure.

Copyright © 2015 by Kevin W. Walker

Hmm....

My ancestors who died in big cities are almost always buried in what are now
the old and depressed areas I would not normally think of voluntarily visiting....

....Except to visit a relative.

Copyright © 2014 by Kevin W. Walker