Are you a writer? A reader? Or a history buff, curious about your ancestors? Regardless, stories intrigue you. Here’s the first post in my series, Researching Your Own Attic Mysteries. Learn how to dig into your vintage family memorabilia to uncover stories and the personalities behind them.
I thought of titling this post “I See Dead People”.
Not that it has anything to do with apparitions. Instead, it has to do with those Ahah! moments: when images of people in musty sepia-toned images in your attic suddenly become people who intrigue you. With a little digging, you end up seeing them in whole new light.
Take, for example, this image of my great-great-grandpa, John Martin Gose (1825-1919). My grandma’s grandpa.
A year ago, this photo meant nothing to me. Even seeing his name marked on the back meant little. But now I know his story, I’m impressed with this guy!
What an adventurer he was. He traveled via covered wagon — from Missouri to California — to take part in the gold rush. He then moved back home, started a family, and brought them all on the Oregon Trail. The journey took nearly a year until they settled as as pioneers in early Walla Walla, Washington.
If that doesn’t beat all, although a farmer, he managed to raise a whole passel of young’uns who became lawyers, a judge and a doctor. All his children prized education so highly that one, my great-grandpa, made sure all his own kids –including four daughters—were university educated before 1920.
One of those girls, my Grandma Gladys, (1897-1994), was also an athlete. She scandalously swam across a lake at U-Dub in a men’s swimsuit to beat the fraternity guys, became a PE teacher in San Diego, then lived in British Raj India for seven years.
It seems that apple Gladys didn’t fall far from the family tree — adventurers begetting adventurers.
Do you now see John, in this photo, a little differently?
Naturally you’re wondering how I learned so much about him. No, I didn’t make his story up imaginatively out of whole cloth. Playing armchair detective, I combed through a combination of oral family history, online ancestry programs, photos, census records, diaries, and letters. A fuller picture of John emerged. It’s amazing, once you have online tools and documents at your fingertips, how quickly you can pull facts together about people in the past.
Old census docs contain a lot of cool details, including occupations, i.e. blacksmith or farmer. Perhaps someday your own great-grandkids will look at a census record about you, and say, “I didn’t know great-grandma was a writer!”
As an author currently writing Gladys’ biography (about her time in India), my exploration of John is more about understanding her backstory. But Gladys is a sum of DNA parts, of her parents and grandparents and their attitudes towards life. It’s nice to not only know her better but also the people who raised her.
I’ll explain more detail in future posts how to use various resources to uncover fascinating family details, which can be used in nonfiction stories, as elements of fictional characters, or simply help you learn more about your own ancestry.
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I’d love to know if this inspires you to drag some boxes out of your own the attic! Let me know also if you have any questions about this process of exploring old family items.
Feel free to comment with your own tips on researching family documents, to encourage us all in our fun history explorations.
Write on!
Laurie