| The Spiraling Chains: Kowalski - Bellan Family Trees |
|
|
Today, January 21, is National Hugging Day. I think I have posted this photo on my personal Facebook page in the past, but it has never made it to the blog. It is me, my brother, and three of our cousins hugging, probably around 1984ish. Give out some good hugs today!  ©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder 
0 Comments
 Thanksgiving 1984 Here I am with my brother and cousins at the "kiddie table" at our family's Thanksgiving dinner in 1984. I was 6 years old. Throughout the years, the kiddie table was THE place to eat - no one wanted to sit at the adult table and listen to them talk about taxes, politics, and the pathetic states of our sports teams. (Um, Cleveland - 'nuff said.) Instead, we wanted to be silly and talk about crappy 80s movies, ask ourselves, "What exactly IS in the beet mold?," and, most importantly, poke fun at our elder family members. As I got older, I was often plucked from the kiddie table and asked to sit with the adults when there was an opening - such were the perils of being the oldest. It wasn't much fun. I usually went back and at least ate dessert with my younger cousins.
©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder A little while ago, I wrote a short post about how Facebook enabled me to reach out to some of my second cousins and in order to share family history information with them. Today, I had another genealogy-related experience with Facebook.
A Facebook friend was sharing some exciting development news regarding her toddler. Since my daughter is about the same age, I made a relevant comment under her post. Of course, I received a notification when the next person commented on the thread. I noticed that this woman's maiden name was Magoto, which is the maiden name of my husband's great-great-grandmother, Amelia Magoto. It's a unique name and spelling (originally 'Magottaux,' but changed after the family settled in America). I went out on a limb and asked this friend of my friend if she was, by chance, from Ohio. Now, I'm not sure where she currently lives, but our mutual friend lives in Kentucky, so it could have seemed like a random question. She quickly responded that she was born and raised in the SAME Ohio county in which Amelia was born (Darke County). At this point, it was pretty clear that she and my husband share a common ancestor. I apologized for hijacking my Facebook friend's discussion and went on to exchange a few messages with Ms. Magoto. And it turns out that her father actually has a family history book that has a lot of information about the Magoto family ancestors, which could turn out to be a great source of information for building my husband's family tree. Lesson of the day: If there is an unusual surname in your family tree and you see someone on Facebook with the same name and spelling, go out on that limb and try to message him/her. You may just find a relative. :-) ©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder  Today, I made up my mind to send Facebook friend requests to several of my second cousins (people who have the same great-grandparents as me) on my mom's side of the family. Some of these people I've only ever met maybe twice in my life, a couple of them I would see once or twice a year when I was younger. I also sent a message to one of my late grandmother's cousins who lives in France, in the hopes that she may be able to tell me more about that side of the family.
These are big steps for me to take. I am thankful for Facebook and its usefulness in finding those more distant family members. Those of you who know me know that I'm really not much of a "people person." If I had to call these second cousins on the telephone, I'm almost positive I wouldn't do it. But, I've put a lot of time and effort into researching this particular side of the family, and I've found a lot of cool and interesting things about our great-grandparents that I want to be able to share with them. I even have some photos of us together when we were kids - from those very sporadic times when we did see each other. Actually, I am probably getting a little ahead of myself - I'm not even sure they will recognize my name and accept my friend request. And who knows if they will even be interested in what I've found? I will be sure to keep everyone posted. :-) ©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder  My brother (in the 'Thriller' shirt, haha!) and I with some of our Kowalski side cousins. Circa 1984ish. I posted this photo on Facebook a couple of years ago, but I saw it in my "old family pics" photo album on the computer and I just had to make it part of my blog. I was pretty close with my cousins growing up. We saw each a lot for birthdays, holidays, baptisms, first communions, weddings, random visits, etc. I didn't have many cousins; four on my Dad's side and only one on my Mom's side. My husband, whose parents had more siblings than mine, has many MORE cousins, but he was never as close to them as I seemed to be with mine. I now have more appreciation for my cousins, for the 25 yr old inside jokes we share at holidays, and for the good-natured jesting we direct at our elders at family get-togethers. :) I recently came into contact with a couple of Tony's 'cousins' through Ancestry.com. I say 'cousins' because they are not his plain-old first cousins as I was discussing above. I learned early on in my family tree research that figuring out the difference between first cousins, second cousins, removed cousins, etc. is tough! So, one 'cousin' with whom I exchanged emails is actually first cousins with Tony's DAD, so that means he is Tony's first cousin once removed, because one generation separates them. The other cousin is actually a first cousin of Tony's GRANDMOTHER, so she is Tony's first cousin twice removed because two generations separate them. Confused yet? Yeah, I thought so. What about second cousins? Second cousins share the same great-grandparents, but not the same grandparents. So, for example, my mom has a first cousin named Ginger. Ginger is my first cousin once removed. Ginger's children, Tom and Steven, are my second cousins. Adele and Louis Licciardi were their great-grandparents AND my great-grandparents. Similarly, third cousins have common great-great-grandparents, and so on. Because I am a very visual person, I found this chart helpful to understanding these relationships. (From Genealogy.com)  So, pick one set of ancestors, start in the top left corner and label them "parents". Then, you can find the relationship between two of their descendants by seeing where the row and column meet for those two particular people. It takes a little practice to become comfortable with all of the terms and what they mean. But, in the end, it's kind of fun, especially if you are interested in genealogy.
©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder |
Emily Kowalski Schroeder
Archives
April 2017
Categories
All
|
