Life would be easier

Life really would be easier if all one had to do when tracing your family was go up or down the tree.

As in life, genealogy is not that easy either.

I'm working on a branch my mother had spent a lot of time researching. In fact, she published a book on this line. Braden: Descendants of John and Leticia 1800-1983.

There were things Mom couldn't prove. There were ancestors, usually not direct ones, that Mom couldn't trace. Almost 30 years later I've found a few things in a short period of time that Mom would have loved to known. Still, my research is minute compared to her research.

To find the information I've found I can't go up from Mom to her dad to his mom to her dad, etc., etc., etc. I have to go up the tree, as far back as Mom could go. Back to John and Leticia Braden. Actually, I can go back to Leticia's parents, as could Mom.

Yesterday I started back down the tree. Instead of taking a direct route, I went off on the branches. Leticia's siblings. Mom and their names and several of their spouses. With that information, I go through that branch of the family. I'm finding people. I'm documenting them. Adding them to my tree with the information available on each of them.

Why? Because maybe, just maybe, one of those siblings is the line where the family stories were passed down from one generation to the next. Maybe one of those siblings passed down the family Bible. Maybe those stories and family history are preserved somewhere. If I don't follow each line, I won't ever know.

If you don't follow all the lines out, you won't now either.

In the last twenty-four hours I've found enough information that I suspect after Leticia died in 1855 that the family broke up at that point. In the 1860 census I've found several of the children in various homes. I still can't find John, their dad, but it does appear the family broke apart. That doesn't mean I won't. I very well could.

Another source when going up and down the branches on the family tree is Find A Grave. A lot of the information found there has been contributed by family members. I was able to document several of John and Leticia's children by using this source. Not only that I found some of their grandchildren. It's especially helpful if there's a picture of the headstone and if there's information on that stone other than dates. Not only does Find A Grave help me find the right descendants, it can help me know when I've been following the wrong person with the same name as one of the descendants.

Yesterday, I found a very long story about Rev Isaiah Reid, who married Mary Ellen Braden. Mary Ellen is the daughter of James C Braden. James C Braden is Leticia's brother. One of the more interesting to me aspects in the article would be missed by the casual reader. Rev Isaiah Reid's ministry took him all over the country. In fact, he was in Hutchinson, Kansas when he died in 1911. Curiously, on his way to Hutchinson did he stop by the north central part of Kansas to see his wife's cousin, James Watt Braden?

This is an important reason to go up and down the family tree and explore all the branches. While Isaiah and Mary Ellen Braden Reid aren't as vital to me, today, in 1911 when they were alive and when my great, great grandfather James W Braden was alive, they were important to each other. If I'm going to honor my direct descendants, I have to honor the family they had while living, too.

Yes, life would be easier if we could just go straight up and down the family tree and ignore all the branches, but we can't. And by exploring the other branches, just as in life when we finish a challenge, we find interesting, rewarding information.

Go explore a branch. Have fun. Who knows what you'll find that might explain a little bit more about your family as a whole.