Becoming Interested in Family History

 I really didn't expect to spend so much time in retirement researching family history.  It was definitely not part of the plan.  I thought I would be busy with organizing the house after moving into a condo, biking and other exercise, friends and family and maybe teaching a class or something.  All that is happening but a chance email sparked an interest that my husband says is now an obsession. I started my genealogy journey in November of 2019.

My sister Linda McCarthy had convinced us to have our mother Shirley Longwell spit in a cup and send it away for DNA testing.  While I was cooperative, I wasn't that interested.  The spit went in and the results came back.  Linda got around to giving my sister Lori Peterson and me the log in information.  I checked it out and sort of wasn't impressed.  I saw that my "cousin" John Spruit was a DNA match and saw a few people on my Mother's mother's side that I recognized.  Her DNA results were pretty much what I would have expected.  I looked around but couldn't get too excited.

Much later, Linda let us know that Mom had received an email in Ancestry from someone in Poland reaching out as a DNA match.  From Poland?  Now that was kind of interesting!  I thought it might be cool to find out more and maybe see what I could find out from this person.  Unfortunately, they didn't respond back but my interest was piqued.  I decided to also spit in the cup and send my results away which would be very helpful in sorting out which matches were from my Mom's side and which were from my Dad's. 

As I waited for my results, Ancestry suggests that you build a tree with what you know so far.  Thus began combing through what records I did have and collaborating back and forth with my sisters.  I had a tremendous amount from the Longwell side.  Our cousin Jeannie  Brown had done genealogy for as long as I could remember and it looked like other people had also done a lot of work.  I always had charts about my Dad's background.  It was my Mother's side that was very sketchy.  For her mother Apolonia Skrobat, we had some information that her siblings and families from a fairly recent trip to Oil City, Pennsylvania but could only go back to our great grandparents--who we had never met.  The information on her Dad's side was even thinner.  Did Anthony Raczkiewicz have siblings back in Poland?  Who were his parents?  Was there even any way to find any of this information?  

Little did I know but there would be a way.  I am in the middle of discovering lots of information and I think this will be an ongoing journey.  I have already "met" some relatives I never knew about and now collaborate with them.  I may even journey to Poland in a few years with some of them to learn more!  What I am struck with the most though is the stories that are emerging and that are sometimes interesting,  sometimes sad and sometimes amazing.  I realized I didn't want to know these stories alone so I text them to my sisters and relay them to my mother Shirley Longwell all the time.  This blog though is an attempt to share them more widely. Maybe a Facebook Page will be next?