Digging deep for those roots

With the late arrival of spring in Wisconsin, landscapers and gardeners are hoping for pleasant weather this Memorial Day weekend to get some behind-schedule yard work completed. I’ll be digging up some roots myself. But for this project, the hoe and trowel will stay put in the garage. I’ll just need a notebook and camera. We’re talking about ancestral roots here.

I regret that my interest in genealogy did not bud until just this past decade when, as timing would have it, I had no living grandparents remaining to serve as sources of names, dates and places. I am fortunate I have had some wonderful resources along the way, especially my hubby, who has been "grave hunting" since high school.

Despite being a late bloomer, the one bright spot for all genealogists today is the Internet. Although I still have plenty of mysteries to solve, thanks to the Web, my search for roots has been quick and mostly painless. Even so, there has been a lot of hands-on “digging” (that’s the fun part) with trips to courthouses, searches through microfilm at the library, and grave hunting in more cemeteries in northwest Wisconsin than I care to count.

The shuttered old church at one of those cemeteries, officially located in Middle of Nowhere, Wis., has a picnic every Memorial Day weekend for descendants of the 85 people buried there – including my grandparents and great-grandparents on my father’s side. My plan is to chauffeur my parents to the picnic on Sunday to see if there are any guests with a story to tell. And maybe check out my dad's homestead -- if we can find it.

On Saturday, I will be doing the same thing with Mom and Dad – one-on-one interviews with each of them to learn anything and everything about their histories… which ultimately become my history. To preserve this, I will be using my new video camera that I am still learning to operate. My mom is camera shy and really, really doesn't want to be on camera, so I will have to be persuasive (or enlist her youngest grandson to lay on the charm).

Hearing them tell their stories in their words will be a treasure those who come after me will appreciate, too. I think.