Have you ever wondered how to start your own family tree and then you start to get overwhelmed because you don't know anyone beyond your Great Grandparents? Don't worry I was there too. In a world that is focused on moving forward and looking to the future it is so important to remember our past and it's important for you too, and you can start now and I will help you start.
I have always been a history buff, since I was a child I loved the idea of living during the Civil War, sailing on the Titanic (even with it's devastating end), going to fancy Victorian era parties and having my dance card filled with eligible suitors. I was swept away in the romanticism, the action, devastation of it all. I could almost touch those images but they were just out of reach.
I was lucky enough to grow up knowing three of my Great Grandparents, I knew that my Great Grandpa Myer's Grandfather was in the Civil War. I also knew that many of my family members were Immigrants from Germany and Poland but that's where all my information ended. I lived with the knowledge that was given to me through my Grandparents and Great Grandparents. That was until I was old enough to actually want to learn more.
I was watching a show on the History Channel about the Battle of Gettysburg, and it made me think and wonder if my ancestor, my Great Grandpa's Grandpa (my 3x Grandfather) was there. Was he among the men who battled for what they believed in? Was he already dead? Was he somewhere else? What other battles did he see? What was his timeline like, where had he been during this time...and until he passed. I wanted to know his story, so I set up a mission I was going to find my past in my present.
At the time Ancestry was still new, I signed up for their website and I started putting in the information I knew. I knew my Parents names and birthdays, I knew my Grandparents names and birthdays (and date of deaths for my parental Grandparents), and I knew my Great Grandparents Birth and Death dates (luckily they were all buried close to me).
I started building out from there. You would be surprised with how little you need to know to get a good start. Finding my 3x Great Grandfather was actually surprisingly easy. He came from a family that settled a town in Michigan (where I'm from), I found a census from 1850 and there he was just 9 years old (the same age I was when I learned about him for the first time), with his family in a town only 2 hours away from where I lived. My Great Great Great Grandfather Peter Myers, and not only did I find him, I found his parents and his siblings. I found a bunch of family I never knew existed.
Photo of Peter Myers about the 1870's
So I just started going from there, I learned he served in a Michigan Unit in the Civil War, he fought at Chancellorsville and won a medal, he fought at Gettysburg, he fought at many of the significant battles during his time as a Union Soldier, and then I found that he was captured at Mine Run and sent to the infamous Andersonville Prison in Andersonville, Georgia. Not only did I learn that he was sent there I learned that his older brother Charles Myers was captured and sent to Andersonville.
Through records and research I learned my ancestors fate and that of his brother Charles. Peter would survive Andersonville, barely. He went into the military in 1861 135lbs and left Andersonville 95lbs. His brother Charles, wasn't as lucky. He would pass away in Andersonville Prison from dysentery.
I went recently to visit the town my family settled. Sparta, Michigan. It's a little town outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan in Kent County. It's crazy seeing your family names on their Museum and Cemetery, but it's also emotional. Here they were, all in a row, not only my 3x Great Grandfather, buy my 4x Great Grandparents, and my 5x Great Grandparents. I was there, probably walking the same ground they walked at some point during their lives. I was in the town the built. I walked the land they farmed, the school they attended and their children attended and so one, the only thing that separated us was the passage of time.
The Myers Schoolhouse Museum
Moral of the story, is a kernel of knowledge is all you need to start your journey. Just a little information and some time and you can unfold a whole library of family history you never knew, and you will be able to connect yourself to those significant moments in time that we only grow up learning about in school. You can connect your children and bring the history they are learning about now alive for them and interesting.
And I'm here to help :D
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