My Journey Into My Past

I found out yesterday that a friend had died.   Mr. Larry See was a genealogist and friend.   We were in two societies together, Genealogy Society of Monroe County and the Downriver Genealogical Society.   He was also in several other groups as well as the Michigan Genealogical Council, and too many more to think of.   I just saw him 3 days ago, and he was excited about an upcoming trip to Salt Lake City, UT for the Rootsweb conference.   He was a busy man.   He also was kind, funny, and always willing to volunteer when needed. I will miss you Larry.

I have not had much luck at our county courthouse.   I did get my brothers birth certificate, and my mothers, misspelled name and all.   Everything else I was looking for pre-dated the county records.   Since I don’t have much to say about the courthouse, here is something I wrote 2 years ago about my dad.   It helps define the picture posted last week.   My dad was a funny guy. THE NORTHERN GIRLS No, it's not a line from a Beach Boys song. It was an advertising promotion from the 1950's, when many companies offered gifts, for a product wrapper and postage. The offerings included ashtrays, glassware, linens, spoons, prints and much more. My Mother, who collected spoons, was able to obtain the five Dionne Quintuplets in sterling silver, each spoon decorated with a toddler quint with their name on the handle. All for a Palmolive bar soap wrapper and a dime The Northern toilet paper gimmick was the image of four little girls, you could cho...

My Family History January 4, 2019 Start of 52 Ancestors in 52-week Challenge Week 1    Ok, I have been researching my family history for about 10 years now.   I have made some amazing discoveries, proved and disproved some family myths, and have tried to get documentation for all my finds.   My family is amazing.   No, we are not related to Elvis, George Washington, Kings or Queens.   There are no famous actors, writers, performers, or political figures I can call my own.   Just hardworking, families that were born, got married, had children, and died.   Sounds boring, but it really isn’t.   Their everyday lives help form nations, fought for their homelands, and forged a bond that reached down to present generations.   I feed a kinship to the great, many times removed, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. My closest relationships are to the intrepid French, who journeyed to New France (Canada) in the early 1600’s.   Th...

  My Dad: always the goof The rest of the family photos are from my mom’s family.   I will page homage to dad’s family later….   Unfortunately, I don’t have as many pictures from my paternal family. Grandmother Lena Rivard Wickenheiser, Great Grandmother Rose Anne LaDuke (Mimi) Rivard, Sister Rose Joblinski and Mother Clara Wickenheiser Great Grandparents Rose Anne LaDuke and Edward Rivard Grand Grandmother Lena Rivard WIckenheiser and her girls  Grandfather Gus Wickenheiser and his boys Great Grandparents Anna Knable and Nicholas Wickenheiser Great Grandfather Nick and a bunch of his great grandchildren.   The tall blonde girl is my sister Rosemary.  

February Themes: 6 Surprise 7 Love 8 Family Photo 9 At The Courthouse I have spent many hours doodling on the internet, just putting in names to see what will pop.  A lot of good information has been found that way, a lot of useless stuff as well.  One day I put in the name of Nicolas Rivard.  I was bound to find something, we had at least 6 Nicolas Rivards’ in our ancestry.  After reading several articles and finding nothing to speak of, I clicked on a Facebook page and hit pay dirt.  The Canadian woman whose page I found was married to a descendant of the first Nicolas Rivard to come to North America.  She had photos and stories.  There was a picture of the baptismal font that the first Nicolas was baptized in, under a plaque that listed his name, a photo of the church in the village, as well as a photo of the original family home in Tourouve, France.  The first Nicolas was born in 1591, and his son Nicolas emigrated to North Americ...

What can be said about love?   There are a lot of things I do not know, but the most important thing I do know is that I am loved. I have always known this.    My parents, grandmother, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews have all loved me.   My husband loved me.   My children and grandchildren love me.   I was never afraid to tell my parents I scratched the car, or needed money, or did something stupid.   They may have been angry, disappointed, or hurt, but they still loved me.   I never doubted that fact.   That’s not to say there were no heartbreaks or sorrows.   Every life has those.   I lost a playmate and cousin when I was a child, and a baby brother only about 6 months later. I reacted to the first loss by blanking out my memory. My first memory as a child was at brother John’s funeral….standing around the grave.   But our family has never been afraid to say we love each other.   We hug, we k...

My posts are a little bit out of order because I started out in Word and had to copy and paste all the stories onto the blog.  I am new to blogging, but I assure you, I will get better!  Sometimes the posts don't appear as they should, they are out of order, and I posted them all on the same day, just playing catch up. But, yahoo, I have a blog!!