ROOTS & BRANCHES

Sometimes life pulls together some different threads that you had no idea might intersect.

The first thread is that my church, the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Berks County, celebrates a take on the Mexican tradition called Día de Los Muertos (“Day of the Dead” in Spanish) in which we’re all invited to bring photos of one or more deceased ancestors (or other people who are important to us) to place on the altar for the service.

I decided to bring a photo of my father’s mother, Dora Annie (Etchberger) Beidler, who died long ago but was the only grandparent of whom I have memories.

The second thread came from my Facebook Friend Melvin Collier, an accomplished genealogist who’s written books on his African American lineage, who posted one of those “20 things” lists, in this case called “How Genealogy Obsessed Are You?”

As it turned out, I got a 19/20—with the only box I couldn’t check being “Interviewed a grandparent.”

My mother’s parents died long before I was born, and my father’s father died when I was 2, which is why “Gramom Beidler” is the only one of whom I have a memory.

She died in 1980, just a few years before I began my genealogical journey, so that’s my excuse not having interviewed her.

But as I thought about the list Collier posted, my thoughts came back to Gramom Beidler and a list that she compiled (according to my file notes “circa 1978”).

It’s a simple list with the names of eight couples that starts with her and my grandfather Claude Beidler.

It then listed three couples who were ancestors of Claude (along with the name of a purported next-generation father that later proved to be incorrect).

The list continued with four more couples who were ancestors of Gramom Beidler, including three generations in her Etchberger line—since she knew one set of her great-grandparents (Franklin and Elizabeth Etchberger) who both lived into their 80s.

There was also a correction to Elizabeth Etchberger’s maiden name, which Gramom Beidler had first indicated was Weidner and then crossed out and recorded as Schneider or Snyder (which brings up a point of indebtedness to her—she recorded all the maiden names of the female ancestors, placing them in quote marks).

As I twirled these threads together, I realized that in many ways it was the list from Gramom Beidler that started my on my way to being a genealogist.

It gave me a start, but also the object lessons that one of her notations was not correct (she listed an Augustus Wilhelm as a great-grandfather to her husband) and that she had to correct her own memory on a maiden name.

So, thanks to Collier for his post that helped me unearth my likely motivation for the picture I brought to church.

And thanks for Gramom Beidler for writing down some solid genealogy starting points for me!