Snowy cold weekends.....bake a cake and study your family genealogy...the old time pictures and family wills and documents are amazingly plentiful on the internet now. In pursuit of tracing my maternal grandfather's family and not thinking anyone was still alive, I found my grandfather's uncle's granddaughter, Polly. She and I together have pursued and linked with other relatives that we didn't know existed and have identified many, but not all, photos I inherited. We did receive photos of chairs that, before now, an unknown cousin possesses that our great great great grandpa made way back when. We've discovered that we have all heard the same stories through the years and also discovered that we all know the same story...without further elaboration...much to our dismay. Who was the grandma who was a Native American who smoked a corn cob pipe? We've all heard about her but she is yet unidentified. What we did find out was a history written by one of us "cousins" back in the 1960's. Elaborately written as to help us picture what life was like for our great great great grandparents as if she was actually there in the same time and place. We found wills from the 1700s and read about Indian raids and scalping of a female relative. I found that same true story in a book called Follow the River by James Alexander Thom. Fascinated me so much I wrote the author who lives about an hour away from me...we correspond regularly.
Every one has a history, just like Mr. Rogers used to say...and it is on line and is the best reading and research you will have the pleasure doing while you eat cake and coze in for the remaining throes of winter weather.
