I think it comes from the fact that I never knew any of my Dad's side of the family.
He was an adopted only child and by the time I was born his parents, my grandparents, were deceased. The rest of this side of the family was pretty much "dead" to him as I was told a hateful bunch.
In any case, I always wanted to know my grandparents and even if I could find out who my Dad's biological parents were. I know very little other than what orphanage he was adopted from and the conflicting information that his biological parents may have been Jewish immigrants. I only recently found out about the conflict that they may not have been. Hard to say really.
I found this when I was doing some research awhile back. It is the census of 1940 that included my Dad and Grandparent's names. Cool, huh?
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| 1940 census with my Grandparent's names and my Dad |
On my maternal side there has been much research done as my Great-Uncle is a huge genealogist. He has done extensive research including going to Scotland and England for information. All of this was handed to my cousin who has done much research too. I managed to secure a copy of all of that for myself. That was rather easy.
As with all families, there are some interesting tidbits including stuff that you may not want to have known but found out anyway even though it was a hush, hush, secret. For example, my maternal side of family (grandfather side) name was probably supposed to be something else. This was due to a issue that arose!
Unrelated to the aforementioned my family comes from back country hillbilly folk and we are also on the Cherokee Indian rolls so this may give you a slight insight to the background and to some secrets kept.
Again, I find it all fascinating and for sure, one big scavenger hunt for that right piece of the puzzle.
