Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Family Interview continued

When and where were your parents born?  What are their full names?  What do/did they look like?  What were their occupations?  How did they come to meet and marry?  

Again the plan here is to the more interesting information about our families histories.  Understanding if they were born in the same town they live in now.  Were they born overseas and where?  Understanding what there full names will help in looking for future generations, because of the use of common naming patterns.  Understanding if names were changed and why.

I am always struck the looks of ancestors two generations ago and the resemblance to the people of today.  My father is short, but if you look at my grandpa and all his brothers they are very tall.  

Where did they work?  The jobs of yesteryear are often ones that do not even exist in today's world.  Were they laborers, farmers or work for the railroad.  Occupations and the accumulation of wealth often explains the lack of a paper trail.  People that did not have a lot of money did not normally have very good paper trails.

Where did they meet shows the closeness of neighborhoods.  Did they meet at church or school?  Were they a friend of another member of the family?  All important items for putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

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