31 Days to Write the Story of Your Family - Day 2: The Roots of Your Tree

Day 2: The Roots of Your Tree

Although I am a scientist-turned-stay-at-home mom, one of my current passions right now is doing genealogy - family history research.  I started doing it seriously almost three years ago, shortly after the birth of my second child.  It has ballooned into so much more than just a 'hobby.'  I maintain a family history blog entitled The Spiraling Chains, in which I share photos, stories, memories, newspaper articles, government documents - anything I can scrounge up on my and my husband's ancestors.  The blog itself is part of two larger websites on which I've listed our complete family trees.  I post links to every document, photo, and newspaper article I can find on each person.  Visitors to the site are free to download the documents.  It's been a great way to share family history with family members when you are all located in different parts of the country.

All four of my father's grandparents were poor Polish Catholic immigrants who came to America around 1910.  My mother's mom immigrated to America with her Italian parents in 1920 when she was about six years old, and my mom's dad was a child of Croatian immigrants who arrived in American in the 1890s. They all settled in Cleveland, Ohio, which is also the area in which I grew up.  Most of my great-grandparents and grandparents worked blue-collar jobs in factories and trade industries.  My Italian great-grandfather was a WWI veteran and a small business owner.  My mom's parents were both WWII vets. 

My husband's ancestors came from western Germany and northeastern France.  Most of them arrived in America between 1830 and 1860.  Like my immigrant ancestors, they also settled in Ohio, but in parts of western rural Ohio instead of in a larger city.  Most of them were farmers, and some of them also owned small businesses, like general stores and farm implement companies.  They, too, were all Catholic and their rural close-knit communities built large, beautiful churches throughout western Ohio, most of which are still in use today.

So, my children are true European 'mutts.'  I started my website and blog mostly for them, so that when they get older, they will have the opportunity to see where they came from and (hopefully) appreciate the struggles our ancestors faced in order to give them the life they have today.  And I hope that my kids will find their stories, even the simple, everyday ones, inspirational and relevant to their lives.

Here are the links to my websites.  The first one is my side of the family and the second one is for my husband's family:

The Spiraling Chains: Kowalski-Bellan Family Trees

The Spiraling Chains: Schroeder-Tumbush Family Trees

If anyone has any questions related to starting out in genealogy, or would like more information about sources to get you started, please ask; I'd be happy to help!  It's such a rewarding experience!