"Combination Trips"

Submitted by HOST GFS Hope@aol.com

 

Not until the past few years had we even thought of combining a vacation with doing family research--but then, we weren't really interested either so a vacation was just that--getting away from everyone and everything connected with our "normal" routine. 

Then a few years ago, while going through some of my Mother's old papers, I found about a 15-year-old notice of a family reunion on her VAN DUSEN (paternal) family that was going to be held in South Dakota. Working on a hunch, and saying a little prayer that these people still lived in that area, I wrote to the address given introducing myself and explaining how I was related. To my complete surprise I didn't get a letter in response, but a phone call from what turned out to be my third cousin who had hosted that reunion for all the descendants of my grandfather's sister.

We talked and talked, and I found out she doesn't live that far from the area where we lived when we were in Sioux City, Iowa. Since I still have a lot of my Mother's maternal kin in Iowa, and we go there occasionally to visit them, we made plans to visit her on our next trip. 

When we did make the trip, combining vacation and visiting relatives, we spent a day with this third cousin and I got to meet a wonderful lady and her husband, two of her siblings (who it turns out live just a few blocks from where I used to visit my great-aunt in Sioux City) and they took me to visit the cemetery where my great-great-grandparents are buried and we drove by the house where they lived. Added to this, I found out that the daughter of one of grandpa's sisters was diagnosed with cancer in the mid 1980s. Before she passed away, and wanting to have something to leave for her family, she started contacting all of the descendants of my great-great-grandparents and put together a family history of the family from 1838-1987 that included over 1000 names. My mother had contributed the information on our family, but had never mentioned it, had a copy of the book, or anything that remotely had given me an indication that it even existed. Needless to say, to me this was a treasure and I now have a copy in my files!!!!

This was the first of our combination trips--and the one that gained me the most information. But we have also visited with relatives in Washington, California, and Canada that we had been in contact with via snail or E-mail, and found it to be so much fun to put faces with these names. It has been like meeting old friends. And you always hear little stories or tidbits that add to the "humanness" of our ancestors and makes them more than just a name and date. 

© 2000 GFNEWS, a monthly publication of the Golden Gate Genealogy Forum, Inc. of Franklin, MA.
(America Online Keyword: roots.) The Editors welcome your ideas and articles,
success stories, favorite genealogy research tips, comments and suggestions.

© 2000 Graphics By Carol, All Rights Reserved