Getting Started

How my interest in ancestry began

A fascination with ancestors began for me in grade school in the 1950’s.  The nuns at the parochial school I attended, sent us home each September with a form to be filled out with “vital” information which included “nationality.”  My mother would say, just put down American.  I would object saying, but isn’t McCauslin Irish?  (An important identity in the neighborhood of east South Bend, Indiana, that included the University of Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish.)  My father’s response was the old saw, don’t bother, you are only going to find horse thieves.  I wasn’t deterred and kept badgering them.  

So, I learned early on that my paternal side was Irish and French Canadian and my maternal side was English and Irish.  I never lost that curiosity about who came before me and dabbled with our geneology over the years.  With retirement, I became seriously hooked. After starting with our public library, searching obituaries in our home town newspaper, I found Ancestry.com and the game was on.