During the past 6 weeks or so, I've sent for and received several more documents from my family's history.  Now that I found the name of my great grandmother, I sent for her marriage certificate and death certificate.  Sara Ann Corbett married Charles Trainor on August 31 1884 in New York City, and together they had 3 sons, one of whom was my grandfather.  Looking at this marriage certificate, I could almost imagine the two of them signing their names as they eagerly started their life together.  Sarah and her family had only been in the United States for 4 years and she was only 22 years old.  However, she died 13 years later at the age of 35.  Why?  How?  When I received her death certificate, my heart ached as I read it.  Such a young woman, wife and mother, how hard it must have been for her husband and 3 young sons.  Although it was a different time with less medical knowledge and care available, I'm sure it was not an uncommon occurance for someone to die so young.  How did her family deal with this?  My Mom has told me her father barely remembered his mother and didn't like to talk about her, he was only 9 when she died.  I find it ironic that I named my youngest daughter Sara without knowing the significance of this name.

I also sent for and received the marriage certificate of my great-great grandparents Robert Callahan and Hannah O'Connors.  They were married on August 20, 1866 in New York City.  This, for me, was one of the most important pieces of my family history.  Both of my gggrandparents had just come to the US from Ireland, presumable during that country's famine.  They were the start of a HUGE family I belong to and were at the top of the family tree from my family reunion this past summer.  Because of them making an incredibly hard journey from Ireland to the US, their family has swelled to more than 400 people in 9 generations.  We can't thank them enough.

Well, enough mushy stuff for today.  It's a beautiful day in NJ, so I'm going outside for a while. I hope everyone is having a lovely day!

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post.  I'm still smiling to myself for finding my great grandmother's name.  I think the sweetest part was sharing the news with my Mom and her two sisters who cried when they saw their parents signatures from 1911 - almost one hundred years ago.  They were two young people just starting their lives that would be filled with both joy and sorrow.  Their family grew from their eight children, to 23 grandchildren, 41 great grandchildren, 29 great great grandchildren and 2 great great great grandchildren.  And then there were their own siblings and their families.  My Mom tells me there was hardly ever a day that there wasn't a group of family at someone's house for dinner, or coffee or playing piano and singing. 

Then as happens in many families, people get married and sometimes move farther away and get busy with their own families, time marches on, some people pass, more people start families and start to loose track of each other, and the younger generations have no idea of who came before them and just how big their family really is.  Then after years of saying we should have a family reunion, I finally rolled up my sleeves and pulled one together.  I tracked down my grandparents siblings families and of course all my first cousins and their families, and we had one hell'uva good time together this past June.  From all my years of research I put together a booklet with the family history and pictures and made a 55 foot family tree with 10 generations from 1829 to present.  Cousins met cousins they never knew they had,  and everyone got a glimpse of where they came from and who came before them.  Best of all was a slideshow I made from almost 300 pictures I had gathered throughout the years of parents and aunts and uncles and cousins past and present.  Not a dry eye in the house.....

Since the reunion, I've heard the same thing from every single person who was there - they are filled with a huge sense of belonging to something bigger than their immediate families; they are amazed and awed by looking at the faces of people who came before them that had the same blood in their veins as we do today; and they were all reminded how important family is.  Eighty people, young and old, all coming away from a reunion with the same feelings - I was so touched and happy, I didn't sleep for a week! 

And that's why I do what I do with the family tree.  I hope you're all enjoying your weekend!