Genealogy once upon a time seemed to be a search for illustrious ancestors. As it became more and more popular for people just to connect back to Europe, people came just as interested in the stories of their ancestors as in the connections of one generation to another. Besides, the stories often gave clues on how to find the connections.
I've been interested in the origins of the name Magree for years, but really didn't make much progress until the 1970s when I stumbled on a whole bunch in Australia. From some of them I found that they could trace their ancestors to Kilkenny, Ireland.
My own personal search stopped with my greatgrandfather, John J.R. Magree who was born in Brooklyn in 1851. I've gathered a few stories about him and his descendants, but I gave up on searching documents to go back further.
Meanwhile, I do a Google search on Magrees and turn up a few I never heard of before. I generally don't follow up because the letter exchange or telephone calls would just eat up time from all the other activities I want to do.
Every so often my curiosity gets the better of me and I attempt to contact someone. I did this recently through classmates.com and got a reply. She gave me some information about her ex-husband. I made the connection to one of my uncles, replied to her, and haven't heard from her since. I probably exhausted her interest in the subject.
However, this led me to reflect on some decades-old issues. My family is not very good on keeping connections up, possibly because of many divorces. I had not seen my paternal grandmother since I was about 7 or 9, but I sent her Christmas cards and maybe birthday cards for a long, long time.
The year after I was married, we drove through Chicago on our way home to Cleveland. I stopped at a phone booth, looked my grandmother up, called her, and she invited us to stop by.
She was living upstairs in a duplex where her youngest son, his wife, and children lived downstairs. My wife and I remember her bitterly complaining about her daughter-in-law.
A couple of nights ago, during a sleepless period, several weeks after I received the message through classmates.com, two explanations about the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflict popped into my head.
Both were born in Germany.
My grandmother had come to the U.S. when she was about six, but as an adult she spoke probably only English. Her children would ask for German words but she had a harder and harder time remembering any.
My aunt was the widow of a German soldier and the mother of a young son. She met my uncle, a G.I., after the war and came to the U.S. with her son.
I wonder if there was friction between the two women because 1) my grandmother could no longer speak fluent German and was frustrated, or 2) my grandmother had antipathy towards Germans in general because of the two World Wars.
I may never know. All the principals are dead now except possibly my aunt's first son. I may never get sufficient curiosity to follow up with people who may be reluctant to get involved with distant relatives.
And this is how so many interesting stories get lost or garbled.
