Unravelling a family mystery

I've never known much about my family history. I spent my early childhood in a small town in Nebraska that both of my parents' families had lived in for a long time. I knew one of my great grandparents. But I never really knew much about my family heritage. About all I knew was that my mom's side of the family was German and had come to America from Russia.

That's all.

My father's side has been a complete mystery. From the few conversations I've had about the family line with my father, I think that lineage is a mystery to him too. For the most part, it's been a mystery I've not felt too compelled to solve.

Something seems to have changed.

I'm not quite sure what inspired me to do it, but I've started looking into my family tree. Maybe it's the fact that they were talking about ancestry recently on the Today Show (although I didn't see any of those segments, just the promos for them). Then, there was a commercial for a website that allows people to trace their family tree on TV the other day. And as simple as that, I started a search.

Maybe it should not be such a surprise that I've become captivated by this exploration. It sort of fits what I do for my day job. Finding information, looking for records, trying to answer difficult questions is part of my job.

If the path I've followed is true, I've traced my father's line back 10 generations, to the year 1680 in England, before I ran out of leads. I've been able to get back about the same number of generations on one branch of my mother's side of the family, also to England, where that trail runs cold in 1724. I'm not sure if I can expect to find much about my maternal grandfather's family or not. I did find records indicating they were German, but I have jet to find a name for my grandfather's grandfather. So, the search will continue.

I've enjoyed the challenge of trying to add small pieces of the puzzle together to learn what the next piece reveals. It may not result in a story for print in the normal way I deal with stories, but it may tell me more about my own story, the things about myself that I never knew I wanted or needed to know.

Now, as my daughter is becoming a young adult, it seems like that's a story that I may want to tell her one day.