"Aunt Doris & My Grandma's Family Line"

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A death in the family...

It is always a sad time when family members pass away. As time goes on in our lives, we lose family members and we struggle to learn how to handle each death. We reflect upon their lives and our interactions. Generally, memories of other family come to mind. This is normal for all of us; however, genealogists often think about that person's family line and the missing data & brick walls that exist for that line.

Recently, my Aunt Doris [West] Brophy passed away at age 88. Although she lived a long way from where I have lived all during my life, I do remember being with her in person on 3 or 4 occasions. The last time was when she asked me to take her to where her father and other family members were buried in Christian County, Kentucky. She wanted to know a little more about her family she just barely knew or remembered. Aunt Doris was my father's sister and her family is the half of my family that I have been researching for over 50 years. I gave her a print out of her line from my database. Her father's line has been filled in fairly well, but her mother's line was not as well known. Over the years, much could not be found on the Phipps or Flatt lines that belong to her mother's side. It was always difficult to learn anything new... over the years, I would find just a little more, but it was never easy! Aunt Doris asked me to see what I could learn about these families for her. I tried searching on the Internet, Ancestry.com, USGenWeb & others. I checked county records & cemeteries. Mostly only finding small bits of information that did not advance my research.

This week after her death, I thought about her line some more. I went to my Family Tree Maker program that is now owned by Ancestry.com using its search the web function. I was able to find several new items on her Uncle Samuel Lee Phipps & Great Uncle Robert Phipps... found several documents that gave me additional information on others in the Phipps line. My Ancestry.com subscription is starting to pay off, especially when I come back to siblings of my ancestors. The search engine at Ancestry looks for all possibilities & variations. I found each of these uncles by checking the variations and then I knew where to look for more. Both moved to other places and I found where they had been hiding from me! I have found a lot of missing data and I have removed a couple of bricks from that brick wall in my Phipps family. I need to go for now, found a few more loose bricks!

- Written by JGWest