St Gabriel Windows

St Gabriel Windows
Photocopy c. 2013 Jamie Laubacher

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Knowing who you are….

It has been an interesting last several months.  SO much has happened, and while we have been very busy with home remodeling, therapies for children, seeing off college kids, and beginning our home school, I have also been very absorbed in family genealogy.  With the use of family tree information from relatives and the great resources at Ancestry.com, (immigration/travel documents, federal and state censuses) I have found out SO much and put so many puzzle pieces together.  It’s been incredible, and because of Ancestry’s website, a long lost cousin who was given up for adoption at birth by a second cousin of my mother, found me and it was great satisfaction for her and myself as well.  A few mysterious solved, and few more relatives located.  I’ve been able to go back to the 1700s on my father and mother’s side both, on my husband’s side – his paternal side, golly, all the way to the 1600s on my father in law’s side, which seems to be very well documented all the way into Germany (and France).
family008
Here my Slovakian great grandparents, their daughter seated (my grandmother) and her aunt at her First Communion day.

It has been so intriguing to read immigration information and see where family was born, come through to the US, settled….Smizany Czechoslovakia was the birthplace of my great grandmother, and Uzofce Czech. my great great grandfather (this side of the family has German roots also).
My father’s side is completely German on one side, (his mother’s), and completely Irish on the other (his father’s); it’s incredible to see that when my paternal grandparents met, their marriage broke that lineage of nationality…my dad was truly half-German, half-Irish in the most serious sense!

peterburg
Paternal great-great grandfather….on my father’s mother side….
Reynolds, Charles K.1906-1972
Grandfather – paternal, my father’s father
So, my research will continue and hopefully once I am satisfied with information I’m hoping to have a nice family tree portrait made for our home, and perhaps a book printed.

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