A Journey


Researching your family tree, for some folks, will only be about gathering as many names into your family tree as possible, I have seen online trees that hold 10,000 names! These trees contain only hard data. They contain names, dates of birth, date of marriage, name of spouse, names of children, and date of death. For some that is enough and satisfies their interest in their family roots.

For others it is about researching the “dash”- that little line (-) between the date of birth and the date of death. For me, that is where the real journey begins, and you never know where it will lead you.

In fact, my genealogy research lead me to Mariposa in 1997. That year, my first year on the internet, a research volunteer found information in the San Francisco 1920 census that my children's Great Great Grandfather had a brother living in Mariposa in 1920. The short story is that I then came to Mariposa in 1997 to experience this place where my children's ancestors had worked and lived, and while here we bought a home and moved here two years later.

It is interesting to note that we had never known that the family was ever in Mariposa, perhaps because we never asked questions?

One of the greatest resources you have, is family members.
Interview your family members. Most of us like to think that folks find our lives interesting, and welcome the questions.

These are just a few examples of questions that will help you
1. Where and when were they born, any siblings?
2. Where did they grow up?
3. What were their parents names?  Where were they born and raised ? What did they do for a living, etc. ?
4. Where are their parents buried, state, town and cemetery if known, dates of death.
5. Other family members who lived near by when growing up, any information on their deaths.
6. Ask about family bibles that may contain records of family births, deaths, marriages.

These are just a few of the questions that will help you locate the documents of these life events. The documents are items you will want to include in your research. Ask if they have photos to share. You do not need to take the originals. Bring photos you own to share with them. There are many ways to copy photos these days. The information about the lifestyles and family stories is the information you can gather through interviews with these folks to fill in the lives they lived that are not revealed in the “dash”.

My suggestion, do this as soon as possible! Document it with a tape recorder. Sometime later, the smallest detail will be of great value in your research.

Some Mariposa Family Chronicles can be found on my website. Be sure to use the search engine on the main page to see if your Mariposa Family is documented among all the news articles posted to the website. Most of the information spans the 1850's through the 1920's.

Have fun!

Carolyn Feroben
Mariposa History and Genealogy
http://www.mariposaresearch.net/index.html

 

$479,500

LUSHMEADOWS CHARMER---3.422 acres

Beautifully Maintained - Built in 1999


Wood Floors-Vaulted Ceilings


Privacy, Trees, and room for gardens

(Listing # 153)