There are so many dark secrets once you start looking into family histories. I don't get very far with my own because of them. I mean, we're talking hundreds of years with affairs, pregnancies out of wedlock, people being exiled, others being murdered, some coming to Ellis Island, others completely denying their heritage (yes, all of these are a part of my family history at some point along the way)....family acestry is dirty stuff. I love it. But it gets hard to track a family line when there are so many sidetracks.
I love figuring out who I am, where I come from, why I look the way I do, why I have certain characteristics that I do and who I get them from....I'm seriously fascinated.
I can't remember how the conversation with my mom started exactly, but I found out some information that I didn't know before. I don't get far in my searches, but I never really even tried looking into my mom's father's side of the family. I never knew him, and no one has much to say about him, so I never really thought I'd get anywhere if I tried to look. But tonight I was told names of my great grandparents on my mom's dad's side (well, I got my mom's grandpa's name and the maiden name of her grandma)....names get you somewhere in the ancestry search, I learned that pretty fast. You don't get much info if you don't even know a name. Tonight I got a name, and she told me his parent's came from Holland to Ellis Island (how cool is that? My great grandparents are listed in the Ellis Island records). I knew it was a long shot but I took to Google, went to the passenger search of Ellis Island, and guess what....I found him. He came here on July 1, 1922 from Bussum, Holland.
I always make jokes of how I'm part Mexican (yes, I actually am but you'd never guess...hence the jokes), and even though I knew I was Dutch I never really looked into that part of who I am. I was telling my mom earlier that I wanted to know more about her family because: one it's a part of me that I know nothing about, and two because I don't look like anyone in the family. According to my mom my looks come from that side of the family. Now I'm really fascinated to find out more about this side of me. Maybe I'm much more like the VanZyl's than I ever knew?
Another thing I learned tonight from talking to my mom was there was a murder in our family. I don't know details yet, my uncle just found a newspaper article about it (I'll be getting the article soon) but I'm sooo curious about the story! All I know is this: my great, great, great, great (?) grandparents who lived in the south were really wealthy, like....really wealthy apparently, and one night some people broke into their house intending to rob them but my great, great, great,great (?) grandma refused to tell them where they hid their money. So the intruders almost beat her to death, murdered her husband, and something with a baby....
I'm tellin ya....family histories are dirty, scandalous stuff.
Is anyone else as intrigued about ancestry as I am?
Does anyone have any "search" tips for me?
I have no idea how to do immigration ancestry searches....
*Update: I got the newspaper article clip from my mom. Let's just say the past hour FLEW by while I searched both the husband and wife's names like a madman.
If anyone who stumbles upon this happens to know more about Hannah Reeves Grinder Baker (or Willem VanZyl)- let's chat!
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