Skip to main content

The Hyphen Between the Dates

My 4th Great Grandparents


A grave marker doesn't leave much space to tell about a person's life. While there may be an engraved picture or memorialized photograph on the stone, most grave markers leave only enough room for two dates and a hyphen. 

And while the hyphen takes up the least amount of space on the marker,
it comprises a whole lifetime.

One day my daughter asked, 
"Mom, why are you so interested in people who are dead?"  

"It's not that I'm interested in the dead," I replied. "I'm interested in how people lived."

About five years ago I came upon a title in the Bargain Books section of Barnes and Noble that caught my attention. By that time I had already been researching our family history for three years. I walked away from the book and continued browsing, but then found myself returning to it. 

It's title, Leaving a Trace: The Art of Transforming Life into Stories, reminded me of that hyphen. I had journaled in college, not because I wanted to, but because it was required of all writing majors. More times than none I would wait until a day or two before the due date and fictionalize the week's entries as fast as I could write . . . missing the whole purpose of daily writing exercises. The end result: a badly cramped hand and a fist-full of scrawled, meaningless pages.  

This book, however, completely transformed my perception of journaling. 

I began to realize that one day, people might wonder about the hyphen between my dates. Being an average American woman, daughter, wife, mother and grandmother, what collection of documents would I leave behind to characterize my lifetime . . . birth, marriage, baptismal and death certificates . . . a few photos . . . a Bible . . . but how would people know my true nature?  likes?  dislikes?  What do I desire my children and grandchildren to know about me?

Since that time I have formed the belief that the role of a genealogist is not confined to preserving the past, but includes recording the present for future generations.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Estate of Isaac Dove (1826): Transcription of Summons, Image 5

Summons: ....14 November 1825 "North Carolina, Estate Files, 1663-1979," index and images,  FamilySearch   (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VKJM-FYZ :  accessed 08 Aug 2013), Isaac Dove, 1826. Image 5/45 [As you can see here, the Summons referred to in the transcription of Image 3/45 was attached to the description and plat.] STATE OF NORTH-CAROLINA. To the Sheriff of Craven County, GREETING: YOU are hereby commanded to summon Hardy L. Jones, James T. Jones Esquire, Gideon Jones, Joseph Davis & Benjamin Borden ------------- to me at such place and at some time before the next Court, to be held for your County, on the second Monday of February next, as to [scratched out] you shall seem fit, then and there to make partition of that part of the lands (which were formerly held in common between Isaac Dove and Anthony Brown) which belongs to the heirs of Isaac Dove and are situated in Craven County on the east side of Spring Branch. ---------------- -------

Using Estate Files to Document Family Relationships on FamilySearch.org

FamilySearch The other day I had a Facebook exchange with a fellow genealogist regarding the valuable resource of FamilySearch.org. This researcher was looking for estate records for South Carolina, and since my husband's maternal line descends from Horry County, I continued to tell her about the records on FamilySearch.org, until I rediscovered why I had chosen to work on my husband's paternal line from North Carolina: not all states' records are represented equally on the site, by far!  Browsing records by location In case you've never searched using the "browse the records" method, here is the process: After signing in and clicking on the "Search" option, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the country file you would like to explore. For this purpose, I'll be clicking on "United States." On the left side of the screen you will find a listing of states to select from. I'll be clicking on "South Ca

Isaac Carter: Determining the Identity of Same Name Rev War Soldiers, Part 1

Have you ever come upon some information that was published in a book by credentialed individuals and assumed that because they said it was so, it must be? I’m sure that at one time or another, we’ve all done that. But can authors make errors? Certainly. There are some cases where the only people who might be able to spot such a mistake are those who have first-hand knowledge of a family’s history because it is their own. When presented with what appears to be a find, they accept it as a clue and take it to the next level.  It’s a bit like being a detective.  This latter group of researchers is familiar with the names associated with their family. When a clue is revealed, they possess the instinct to know if the information is sound, or if there might be some room for interpretation. Such was the case of Isaac Carter’s Revolutionary War record. (March 2008) My husband’s CARTER ancestry takes us back to colonial North Carolina, to New Bern in Craven County. His 3 rd great-grandfat