User:Kerbent/My Profile Page - Sandra Williamson

Where my interest in Family Story began
I began my genealogical journey over 27 years ago before I turned 21. My grandmother had informed me that she would be dying soon as she was very “old”. Suddenly I realized that her old tin full of photographs, photographs that had no labels or names on them, they were pictures of mostly unknown people. With a sense of urgency I began to visit her once a week trying to sort her photos and label them.

She would sit in a large recliner chair in her lounge room overseeing my efforts, I lay out her photos in chronological rows asking repeatedly who is this?, where’s that? Did this happened before or after that. The photos were organized and re-organized, sorted and labeled. Then one day she brought out another tin of more photos and other “stuff” and we began to sort through them also. All of a sudden she clutched a folded and very yellowed piece of paper to her chest, leapt out of her chair and ran into the next room. I was flummoxed I had no idea what was going on. I followed her into the next room where she refused to show me the piece of paper, she tucked it into her pocket and came back out to begin working once again on her photos. I was intrigued by her actions but decided to respect her wish for secrecy and focused on other things when visiting her.

Much later (several weeks) I summoned up enough courage to ask her what was on the paper. She tilted her head side ways and peered at me and finally said that blood was thicker than water and that we don’t speak to people outside the family about our personal business, and so the story about my family had begun, I had inadvertently uncovered my first family skeleton..

My Grandma celebrated her 100th birthday on the 2nd June 2007, with almost all of her descendants celebrating with her.

We used to sit and talk and I would tease her about how she told me she was about to die those 25 years ago (she was in excellent health at the age of 100), sometimes I tell her the things I’ve found in my research but we had a silent agreement she wants to hear only the good things not the bad (perhaps that’s why she lived so long?). She used to shake her head with puzzlement at my interest in my family history. Why was I so interested she would often ask? Having said that over time she gave me all family photos, perhaps she knew that although she can’t fathom my interest, that I’d take good care of her newspaper cuttings, old photos and stories which seemed to make her feel at peace. She’d often begin to tell me stories of her childhood of the struggle for survival and she knew that I was “really” interested, at other times she would marvel when I repeat a story back at a later date and as she sorted through her 100 years of memories, she would still find the story there as clear as when she first told it. She would often say that sometimes she would sit after everyone has gone and think over the conversation and remember more things, the ones that have receded in her memory buried under years of more recent stuff.. Its always worth asking what’s new.

I still feel that same sense of urgency that I did years ago but now I also feel a sense of responsibility of getting it all down and bringing it all together as one day I will that lady sitting in the recliner chair telling tales of things long ago. I will be giving and sharing a box with CDs of pictures and copies of research and certificates, all pulled together in amateur stories for the next generation of grandchildren to reorganize and sort as they try to make sense how they fit into the larger story and prepare it once again to hand on to the next set of grandchildren. (Oh and by the way grandma gave me that piece of folded and yellowed paper that was so precious and difficult to share, we don’t mention it but she has asked me to share all that I have with others.. What was once so shameful is now a story of strength, endurance and love an inspiration a story worth telling.)

Grandma passed away in 2008 at 101.

My Family tree BlogPage cooncerning my reserach can be found at Family Tree Circles