Up a Tree

 We recently had our trees trimmed, and judging by the time it took, they were a mess. Branches growing every which way, sticking themselves into places they didn't belong. They're all very tidy now, with only the stubs of the removed branches giving a hint as to the mess that once was. My first look into the results of the investigations of my family members into our past was nothing like the lore I grew up with. Our family tree branches off every way. Some of the branches are long with many offshoots. Others are mere twigs, bereft of any useful information.  The main outlines are there and confirm what I remember being told -- that we come mostly from German and English stock, with enough Irishmen tossed in to create a real claim to our Irish heritage. But the details are much messier than the little bit of family history I grew up with. Take the story of my paternal grandfather. The story as I remember it was that he immigrated to America. But a document I found in items my...

 Sometime ago my sister embarked on a journey to discover her other family. You see, she was my mother's daughter by mother's second marriage. And though Dad adopted her and raised her as his own, at some point she decided he wasn't her "real" father. You may not be surprised to know this was a bone of contention with Mother. I gather Mother didn't think much of her second husband and resented my sister's attitude, given that Dad had been the one to do all the dad lifting through most of sis's life. Sis joined Ancestry.com after Dad's death and began researching, eventually finding her biological father's family, though by then he had died. She made contact with them and visited with them at least a couple of times. This led to a rift that wasn't crossed until years later when Mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. After Mother's death some six months later, we packed up Mother's stuff, and Sis took it back home to sort and sell bec...