Thursday, July 14, 2011

Family Tree by Leann Harris

My daughter is doing our family tree. I was the keeper of 'the books'. My father's aunt had done his side of the family and my mother's brother did hers. I got the information, but with young children, I didn't know anything with it but put it in the closet.

My husband's sister did extensive work on his family. Several years ago, my daughter got interested and took up the mantel. She even had us drive to Mississippi to continue her search. Apparently, my husband had a relative who suddenly appeared in Texas around the time of the Civil War. You know, we haven't been able to track that scoundrel down to where he came from. There are lots of stories about where the man came from--maybe Georgia or Tennessee. And the boundaries of the states have changed, names are spelled however the census worker wrote them down.

I sense a skeleton in the family tree and so far our relative has kept his secret.

The lesson of that is if you don't want to know what your relatives did, don't go looking.

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