Dad got into genealogy about 10 years ago. While I thought it was neat to find out that my great-great whatever was born in East Pudonk, Bohemia, I could not understand how anyone could make a hobby out of genealogy. Who truly cares to know the exact date that some long-dead relative kicked off? People spend hours doing this? Normal people?
Well, things change. My son had a family history project last year, and when you assign a nine-year-old boy a family history project it's a guarantee that his mom is going to have to tackle a lot of it. I managed to work legos in somehow, but beyond that he wasn't engaged with it. Certainly not regarding any of the relatives he didn't know personally. To my surprise, I got hooked. I finally got it, why people do this; why it's been so satisfying for my dad. If you've been watching that series "Who Do You Think You Are," you have either gotten a glimpse of why people do this, or you're utterly perplexed. I can't tell how that series would come off to someone who's not already obsessed.
Anyway, it turns out that my husband's family's Chicago roots also extend to Indiana. I've been meaning to get to a little town named La Porte, IN to visit a cemetery and the local library, and finally was able to do that on Friday.
One of the things I found was the church record of the marriage of Peter Meier (my husband's great-grandfather) to Mathilda Miller (my husband's great-grandmother). Most of what was written there was not news to me; it mostly confirmed what I knew. But since it was tiny handwriting, written in fountain pen, using the handwriting style of the 1890s, and in German to boot, I decided I should take a photograph of the entry. That way I wouldn't have to trust my own transcription.
This morning I looked at the photograph, trying to discern Peter Meier's mother's name, something I really don't know. The minister's handwriting wasn't helping. For the first time my eyes wandered to the entry above. And realized that just a few weeks prior, the minister had married Louise Miller. Parents were Ernst Miller & Dorothea Radtke, same as Mathilda. Mathilda's sister! I knew she had siblings but didn't know their first names (just their married names). And I wasn't aware that any of her sisters had married a groom with the name I saw listed. When their parents died 20 years later, that son-in-law was not named. Probably a remarriage occurred, likely after Louise was widowed. But when? How?
So one mystery was solved, but another was created, and it all felt like serendipity. I had such tunnel vision that I never looked at any other entries on that page. And I would have missed it entirely had I not taken the photo.
Genealogy research is filled with things like that, where you run across something unexpected, and it turns out to be the missing piece of the puzzle you need.
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