Back in January of 2007, when I started my genealogy research I had no idea how addicting it would become.  For several years my Father has been researching his own father who came from Denmark as an indentured servant in the 1800’s and had taken on the name of the people he worked for making the research fairly difficult. He is very enthusiastic about his genealogy research, and after spending many hours at it myself, I now understand that enthusiasm completely.

The primary reason I became interested in genealogy was to find information about my mother’s mother Helen Gertrude Phelps who at the young age of 28 died tragically on the Fourth of July, 1935 when my Mother was only four months old.  Unfortunately all touch with that side of the family soon weaned away leaving us little information about my maternal Grandmother’s lineage.

I signed up for a 14 day free membership with Ancestry.com and started looking for her.  I had very little to go on.  I knew of course her name and those of her parents, and the most important fact: Fairfield, Illinois the birth city of Thomas C. Phelps, Helen’s father.  I found Helen, age seven, residing in Jacksonville, Illinois in the 1910 U.S. Census records, and then again in the 1930 Census listed as a boarder in Gladwin, Michigan. The 1910 Census revealed several gems, such as the names her siblings and the birth states of her parents and grandparents.  It also had her father’s occupation, a barber, and the apprenticeships of her brothers, which confirmed their identities later in other census records.  

Just two days into my research I hit paydirt and found Kimberly, a third cousin, once removed, on Helen’s mother’s side. My second Great Grandfather was her second Great Grandmother’s brother!  In other words, our Great, Great Grand Parents were brother and sister! Kimberly has been researching for the over twenty years and has accumulated thousands of names on her Family Tree. She has been very generous in sharing with me much of her research, primarily that of the Guthrie family, Helen’s Mother’s lineage.  However, I soon realized that because our families had split at the Great, Great level there was little, if any research done on Helen's father’s Phelps side.  So, with little experience, beginners luck, and Kimberly‘s encouragement, I was off into virgin genealogy territory! 

My research was like a human puzzle with the pieces spreading over a forty to fifty year period.  In order to simplify my research, I lined up these decades in columns with the names of the players in each column from one census to the next.  It became clearer just how these families stayed together and inter-lived. It was however, frustrating that I had very few records, other than census records to go on.    There was a terrible fire at the Wayne County’s Court House in the late 1880’s that destroyed many court house papers, including marriage and birth certificates.  The census records are considered proof and without marriage certificates and birth certificates they are all I have to go on.  The longer I have looked at these families the more I’m convinced these families are my family. 

Another thought here, one that is really an astonishing thought: I am the living breathing “result” you might say, of their existence.  Yes, within in me are the Phelps, McMackins, Borahs and Kings!  When I think about these people, their lives lived hard and true, it amazes me that I’m am a part of them.  They were just as alive as you and I are now.