---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 05:30:43 -0800 From: Varlo@aol.com To: MARKHAM-L@rootsweb.com Subject: {not a subscriber} Aftermath of a back draft fire As a child, I lived next door to my paternal grandmother. Most every time I went into her home, I saw genealogical records spread out on her kitchen table. Then, at age 18, I began copying from her records, and from the records passed down from my maternal ancestors. This compilation resulted in my having completed 25 pedigree charts. When my paternal grandmother died a few years later, her records of a lifetime of work were given me since she had encouraged me in such a responsibility. Later, records originally compiled by great grandparents, grandparents, parents, and siblings of both myself and my husband finally came into our possession because of our having been elected to receive such when the death of a record keeper occurred. Thus, our home became an archive of genealogical records stored in many files in the upstairs and downstairs of our home. Right now after the fire, it is painful to try to determine which original records have been destroyed. Fortunately, the four large file cabinets kept upstairs were dragged to safety by a son and two daughters-in-law. The study room where they had been stored was not over the basement area--the room having been built where an attached garage originally would have been built. Separated from the rest of the house by a brick wall kept fire damage to a lesser degree for these records. The files kept downstairs will have suffered from damage because the full depth of the basement contained water. Though my computer was destroyed, our son hopes to be able to retrieve the data on the hard drive, recording all my ancestral lines, as well as the genealogical data on my husband's destroyed computer. -Loia Goodmansen