Oh I think she knows Tdsfw.......I'm really enjoying everyones stories about how each got into genealogy and I realized I haven't told mine for a long, long time on this forum.....so here goes......I grew up with a Mom who loved to talk and a Pop who rarely spoke, but when he did it was meaningful. As a child I was enriched with having my maternal grandma live with our family for several years, she was the first old person I truly loved, white hair, always wore apron, nipped a drink, etc. I also had my Nannie and Grandpa, who were my Dad's parents, Nannie was always sick and Grandpa was a Judge and a chef at holiday time, typical turkey carving, robust fellow, big smile and laugh, beautiful home. Nannie was very matronly and high brow. Then I had my great grandparents, the Patten's who were my Nannie's parents, he was a carpenter, she a doll restorer. So I had 5 grandparents as a child, pretty lucky and it was always special to visit them. When I was in 8th grade I had a family tree to do and I started to put down the Judge as my grandfather......Mom stopped me. She said Frank Baker was not my actual grandfather, but that his name was O'Neil, I said, What? She went on to tell me my Dad had been adopted by Nannie's second husband who was too young to be Dad's natural pop anyway. Well I had a zillion questions but Mom didn't know anything (not even his first name) and she warned me not to ask Dad or Nannie, and she said they both hated the O'Neil. She called him The O'Neil ! Oh geeezzzzzzzzzzz........this drove me nuts...........all I could do was write down a dead family tree, this was in 1964 about. As I became a teenager I used to fantacize about changing my name to Jill O'Neil....and I practiced writing and signing my name like this.....years later my sis got into genealogy and sent me a tree and it had all of Judge Baker's family on it, nice pedigree, the Fairbanke's family of Dedham Mass is his mother, etc. I told her its wrong......then my aunt got interested, finally one of the children of the O'Neil willing to talk, since I was here in Hawaii I left it to my sis to work on this, and my interest was in other things (but it was always in the back of my mind). Well in 1994 they found out his name from SSDI records and requested his death cert and then contacted the informant of the cert who knew my real gramps his whole life. In June 1995 I bought a computer and joined my sister, aunt, my sis' mother-in-law and 2 neices on an overland adventure to Hermiston and LaGrande Oregon to meet Walter Primm, our gramps friend, he showed us pics, we picked his brain, we visited cemeteries, houses and more, it was lovely, he told us the life story of Charles Edward O'Neall my grandfather. We got copies of everything, and he told us of his neice Joann and we went to see her in Klamath Falls and she gave us an album of pictures, there were photos of my Dad and aunts as youths, and so much more. IT was really something.....Joann used to ask Charles, don't you think you have grandchildren? And he said yes he thought he must......he lived til 1987, and I surely wish I would of found him sooner, but then my Dad would of been so upset, and he lived til 1994, so I think in a way it was meant to be exactly the way it turned out. This unravelled mystery is how I got involved in genealogy, it been a short time, but I have spent thousands of hours since that trip to find my grandfather. Sometimes families are separated in life and can only be reconciled by time, I found out the lies that Charles' mother had told him about my grandmother were just that, and he was not a scoundrel and a bootlegger, but a man who worked for the railroad his whole life and died wondering about his 36 descendants he never knew. Yes its sad, but now at least we know our past and our children will know too, where we came from and who we are................and the family secret has been revealed finally. After this trip I wrote a story and collected all the data together, and also copied all the other lines my sis had worked on so diligently. Walter had told us there might be another brothers family and I have found them too and hope to see them when I move back to California in a couple of years. The following Spring, Walter died too, but not before passing on the legacy of his old pal to his grateful family. By then we had started this oneall list, I had connected my grandfather to Hugh and Annie O'Neall and found lots of cousins online from the same tree. And now I always sign my name proudly, Jill O'Neall Ching. <3 ---------- : From: [email protected] : To: [email protected] : Subject: Re: [ONEALL-L] Success stories~How you became interested in Family History : Date: Tuesday, November 03, 1998 8:37 PM : : My mother started researching in the late 1960's, due to her Step-Father, : Albert Walker : Torrans, telling her that he did not know his grandfather's name. : This led to several years of searching for the family of my grandpa (step or : not)-----during this time Mom began to search for her own Roots...... : For over 25 years, with NO computer, she amassed boxes and boxes of paperwork. : She joined genealogical societies (pouring over their publications), wrote : letters by the thousands, logged hundreds of hours on the telephone, visited : cemeteries, and family every chance she got on trips to TX and LA from her : home in Calif. : : Bless her heart, everytime a conversation started, it got into : genealogy------with everybody. : My children were embarassed, and she had me totally confused on which family : went with : who. : : In 1991, Mother passed on, and I was left to sort through the boxes and boxes : of family : group sheets, census records, letters, bits and pieces of information written : on everything. : Not realizing that all the families were jumbled together---including what : little she had been : able to sniff out on my Father's family. : : It took me 4 years, of dabbling here and there. By February of last year I : was hooked totally on this unending quest. : : I still don't have all her research in the computer----but I have managed to : add several generations to the tree. I hope she knows that she left a legacy : that has been carried on : and hopefully will find another after. : : This has been one of the most exciting and fun things (besides my business) : that I have : ever done. My only regret being that I didn't get the "bug" sooner, what fun : and what discoveries we could have made together. Thank you Mom : : : : Researching: Squyres, O'Neal, Adair, Pyburn, Rhame, Bazer, Smith, Mosley, : Wilson, : Hartsell, Cline, Anderson All wound up in LA or TX :