On ancestry.

A few weeks before Christmas I fell down the Ancestry.com rabbit hole.  I signed up for the two week free trial and during the time of the year that I'm usually busy decorating, wrapping and baking, I was instead looking at 1940 census records, birth records and death records, marriage certificates and records of burial.

It was fascinating.

I found hundreds and hundreds of relatives, both living and deceased.  I found proof of things that I had heard as a kid and found a few things that were a complete surprise to me.

I've always been interested in family history, but it always seemed so daunting to try to research it myself.  

I'll have to say, this was a pretty easy way to go. 

I did run into a glitch when I realized that it would not let me input two different marriage dates to the same person.  YOU DON'T KNOW ME ANCESTRY.COM!

Ahem.

By far my favorite find had to do with a great uncle I tracked down. 

I remember my Mama talking about spending time as a child with an uncle named Dooney.  That's what she called him. Uncle Dooney.  Uncle Dooney this, Uncle Dooney that.  He sounded like a really nice guy, so it was important to me to track down the records for him.

I found him alright.  His name?  Duane.  But pronounced  Dooney.  As in Du-An-E.

True story.

Strong names aren't really a thing in my family, I guess.

Let me tell you another story. 

When I was a kid, I had an aunt.  

Her name was Mad Lou.

Well, that's what I thought her name was, anyway.  In my defense, so did my siblings and cousins.

Someone once came around my cousins' house looking for "Mattie So-and-so" and they claimed no knowledge of such a person.  

I was a teenager before I realized her name was really Mattie Lou and people just kind of ran it together when they said it.  "MadLou called today."  "I ran into MadLou at the store."  "We're going to go see MadLou tomorrow."  You know, as you do.

She WAS kinda crazy.  It seemed like a fitting name.  

But back to now.  During my brief foray into family history, I learned quite a bit about those who came before me, but I ended up with more questions than answers.  Someday, someday, someday, I'm going to have the time and resources to really dig.   For now, though, I'll just have to be content with the tidbits I've found so far.  

No matter how you pronounce it, it's still family to me. 

Do you do any genealogy research?  Are you interested in your ancestry?  

This is not a sponsored post.  At all.  Really, if it were, I would have had more than a two week free trial, don't ya think?