My paternal grandfather and my great-grandmother. She lived to be over 100. #lifegoals

I’ve been diving back into family history stuff lately, in an effort to spend more time doing things that bring me joy. Especially now that even more people in my family are dying (my dad and my great-half-aunt in the past year), I turn to old photos, letters, documents, and facts for connection.

Seeing photos of my maternal grandmother when she was a girl is particularly comforting, for some reason. I think there was so much to her that she never nurtured, never expressed, because she wasn’t allowed to as a kid, nor as a wife. (She was surrounded by strong personalities—her parents, her sisters, her husband—so became a bit meek and didn’t advocate for her needs or position, I think.) I’m also fascinated by how utterly connected to Ohio my mom’s side of the family was.

I’ve been spending my spare time in the past few days organizing the digitized documents I have already, and I am so grateful to have so many reminders of where I came from, where my family came from, who my family is and was. Not everyone has that. I have an almost inexhaustible supply of things that still need scanning, too.

Spending time with my family history always brings me joy and makes me smile. I’m always sharing interesting facts and tid bits with Rory. I hope I don’t bore him.

But because this is really what I want to spend a lot of my spare time doing—organizing and analyzing my family history—I hope to write more posts on the subject going forward. Sorry not sorry if I bore you too, dear reader.

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