Passing It On

I have been interested in family history for many, many years. I hung on the stories my mom and dad told about their childhoods. Both parents lost their mothers when they were young, mom when she was almost 8 and dad when he was 13. So their memories of their formative years were bittersweet.

Dad had copies of his mother's application for the United Daughters of the Confederacy hanging on the wall for many years. Yes, dad's family fought on that side. I got him to make me a copy and when I got my first genealogy program, and after adding immediate family began to enter the information Grandma Percival had written in on her worksheet. The interesting thing about that worksheet was that Grandma was not eligible to enter on her maternal grandfather's record. John Garland Webb took the Oath of Allegiance before 1865 upon his release from the Gratiot Street Prison in St. Louis as a POW. She ended up joining on her paternal grandfather's line, John Parker Bowman. And so it was, that fifty years later, I joined the UDC on her record.

It seemed for years that dad and I were the only ones interested in the family history. Occasionally, I would get an inquiry from a sibling about one of the surnames in our family tree. Then one day, Older Daughter showed an interest. She still doesn't like going to cemeteries, and still isn't obsessed the way her mom is. But there is hope there.

Recently, one of my much younger sisters (11 years is quite the gap, eh?) started to show an interest. I suggested free software that she could download and sent her an email with a gedcom attached. Her most recent comment to me was "I can't believe I am getting sucked into this."  Yay! I'm glad to pass on this contagious disease.