Amy Johnson Crow at No Story Too Small gave us a new 52 Ancestors challenge for 2015. Each week, we have a different theme about which to write. It’s quite the challenge, but I love meeting it and reading how everyone interprets each week. Week four is “closest to your birthday.” Discovering an ancestor who has a…
It’s hard to know where to begin my family history story about Adaline Isabell LeMaitre. Belle is my paternal 2nd great grandmother. Her portrait has hung on the wall of my parents’ home my entire life. I used to stand in front of it in awe of her beauty. She reminds me of a pioneer…
At the end of the hallway at my parent’s house hang portraits of my dad’s great-grandmother, Isabelle LeMaitre, and her 2nd husband, Walter Seaver. Notice I didn’t say my dad’s great-grandparents. Walter, although loved by Isabelle, wasn’t our blood relation. Of her three husbands, she loved him best. My dad’s great-grandfather, Charles Daniel Essler, was…
One thing I find most frustrating about being relatively young and tracing family history is that I don’t hold much of the actual history in my own memory. Someday I will, I suppose. Now, however, I rely a lot on older relatives and old books that have bits and pieces of the puzzle. Unfortunately, I’m…