New Year and New Challenge - Ancestors in 52 Weeks

This year I figured I'd do another challenge for the blog. This year's challenge is 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks and is run by Amy Johnson Crow.

The way this challenge is run is we get generic prompts each week which we're to write about. We can interpret them anyway we want and write about them.

Writing this blog really is a challenge for me as sometimes life gets in the way and I don't get them done, but eventually I do finish. What people don't realize is besides working and leading a normal (ha ha! Normal?) life, I am the secretary and treasurer of Neighbourhood Watch of our local area. Then you add to that I run 3 family genealogy groups, write 3 blogs and write as a hobby. Then to top this off, I've also been writing up my grandmother's life story using documents I've found. Finally, add to this all the genealogy research I do and...its a full life to put it mildly.

Anyhow, I'll be here writing.... this year's challenge.

Week 1: First

Who was the first ancestor you found who you didn't personally know? Who was the first ancestor to arrive in the country? Who was the first child in one of your ancestral families? First to go to college? First husband out of a string of many?

Talk about a topic to start with! I'm sitting here with my miniature M&M's, a steaming hot cup of tea to keep me going at 10:41pm on a warm January night, and think of where I can start. I stair at the monitor, then drum my finger tips with one hand while reaching for the miniature M&M's with the other. All the while trying to think where I can start with the first.

The Beginning or the Start
I guess I can start at the beginning....

I never heard of, nor didn't know what, family history or genealogy was until after I married my husband in 1997. Then I was talking to one of my husband's aunt's and she mentioned family history and we started to talk.

I was shocked but also felt a spark of...something. By the time I left, I knew what I had been doing growing up, was collecting things, but only because I wanted them for when I grew up and I knew it would make my mother crazy with keeping stuff.

First things
When I was little, my paternal grandmother, Jean Schmitz, gave me a small cups and a small jug and told me she brought these with her when she came from Poland and very special. I did play with them but I was also careful. However, somehow these things kept getting broken. Some I found and

The picture of the surviving cup

cleaned them up crying and others I was told when I came home from school that one of them were broken and my mother threw them out. I had a feeling she was breaking things, but I couldn't, and still can't, prove it. To ensure I still had at least one, I hid it in with my clothes. One day it too, was broken, but this time I found it and I glued it back together again and hid it even better.

Same thing happened with my birthday ring my grandmother bought me right before her death. I did have the ring box some place. It was only when I went looking for the ring is when I found it gone.

When the same grandmother died, I kept her obituary and funeral clippings from the newspaper. Why? Because she was my grandmother and I loved her. It was that simple.

My paternal Grandmother's obituary

I had kept other things over the years but they were mainly my school years. I figured if I ever had kids they would get a kick out of looking at the stuff.

Then came the night before I was to leave the US to get married to my husband in Australia. My mother pulled out something and sat down looking at the item before looking into my eyes with her sad ones.

"These were my cousin Jimmy's. He died in World War 2 as a gunner. He came home for a few days and gave me these the night he left. I was in bed and he walked in and we talked before he took them off of his uniform and handed them to me. He told me he had just received them before he came home. He said they were mine now and handed them to me."

The airman's silver wings of James Sherman

Then she looked into my eyes and said in a soft voice. "And now they are yours. Don't lose them." and handed them to me.

I looked down at them and was shocked. I never heard of a cousin Jimmy. I never heard of losing anyone in World War 2. I never even saw these before. I closed my fingers around the set of airman's silver wings.

The emotion, which was and is rare for my mother, made up my mind that these were my something old for our wedding. I had these with me on my wedding day and keep them close even now.

First Find
When my husband's aunt started to talk about family history these are the two things which sparked in my memory.

On the same night, I told my husband's aunt the story about my mother's cousin and the wings. About 3 months later, we received an email saying that we should come over soon as she had some information for me.

Soon we visited her and found she had asked a few of the people who did military research. They found some documents for James 'Jimmy' Sherman and handed them to me. They matched what my mother said since I had the talk about him to my husband's aunt.

I was finally able to give my mother more information about how her cousin died only a few weeks after he gave her his wings.

Documents which was found about my mother's cousin, James 'Jimmy' Sherman.

Military Statement about the accident

A few years later, I was able to find a tablet with his name on it.

From Find a Grave showing James Sherman on tablet wall in a cemetery memorial in France Italy

These are the first reasons why I started genealogy and family history. They sit on my desk in front of the keyboard and when I feel frustrated I look and touch them. They are still the main reasons why I keep researching and keep going.