Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Now This Was Interesting - To Me, At Any Rate

During the Summer, my daughter took a class on the history of California - mainly Southern California, that is.  My mother's family has been here a really, really long time.  My father's family lived in Wisconsin, where he was first generation American.  And both my parents have extremely uncommon (although properly ethnic - Father's Czech, Mother's French) last names.  So Amanda knew immediately that she had found something out about my Great Grandfather that we hadn't been told by my mother.  Something my mother didn't even know.  His death in 1938 (or was it 1932?) was listed as a result of the flooding of the Santa Ana River.  We'd heard many stories of the flood, but not this.

7 comments:

  1. Genealogy is one of those intensely personal things that may or may not be of any interest to another person, which in no way makes it less fascinating! The unusual names in your family are quite enviable from a research perspective, though I've no idea how accessible Czech or French records might be. It's a brilliant adventure, researching one's family tree - and finding ties to historical events is part of that wonderful journey!

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  2. Hi Shelley - My sister is fascinated by all of this. The nice thing about the Czech records is that Prague wasn't destroyed by bombing during any wars.

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  3. I have been interested in genealogy, but I have not really done any research. I really ought to start working on doing research. Maybe this winter?
    I think it is sad that we know so little about our ancestors. If not for those people, we would not be here yet we know so little.

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  4. Hi Debbi - Maybe it's this heat, but I have a lot of plans for the Winter, too. I was trying to remember if you'd put it in your blog, but what is your heritage? With your fair skin and hair, I would guess Swedish, or at least Scandinavian.

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  5. Isn't that interesting that your mother never mentioned it, but not unusual in a way, because there were so many things "they" didn't tell us about the past (I mentioned that in one of my previous posts). I am very glad your daughter found this information. I think it's important to know about our ancestors.

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  6. Isn't that interesting that your mother never mentioned it, but not unusual in a way, because there were so many things "they" didn't tell us about the past (I mentioned that in one of my previous posts). I am very glad your daughter found this information. I think it's important to know about our ancestors.

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  7. Hi Sanda - I remember that post of yours. Pretty interesting past your family had!

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