Hi everyone!
It's time to get to know another one of our wonderful WikiTreers. This week's member is Staci Golladay.
Staci became a Wiki Genealogist in April 2018. She is a Cemeterist, Greeter, a Project Coordinator for Armenia, and active in our Remember the Children Project.
When and how did you get interested in genealogy?
Growing up in a small town like Santa Maria, California, I was the first great grandchild of my generation. I saw all of my grandparents and great grandparents regularly several times a month. My Paternal Great Grandfather, Grandpa Hadsell, was a storyteller, and a picture taker. I grew up sitting on his couch, as he smoked his pipe, looking at his photo albums and hearing him tell stories about his father and his brothers and the construction work they did that took them from Ohio to California.
He also told me all about his beloved wife, my Great Grandmother Dariel Antonia (Orella) Hadsell and my Paternal Grandfather, his son Harley John Hadsell, both of whom had passed prior to my birth. When I was sixteen, I was given a written copy of my Orella family tree that was put together by an Orella cousin and I was hooked. It took me several years before I had the time to enter all of that hard copy data into an Ancestry.com Tree, but I eventually did that.
What are some of your interests outside of genealogy?
I love to crochet, even though I spend more time starting projects than finishing them. I am both devoted to and irritated with my cat, Morigan, who I am convinced is really me in cat form and isn’t that just Karmic in its purest form? I am an avid reader and Professional Wrestling fan. I have a large, blended family and a total of eight kids that call me Mom, and five grandkids that call me Nana. And yes, I try to develop all of their branches of the tree as well.
What is your genealogical research focus?
I grew up with the mentality that if I ever ran across someone with the surname of Hadsell, they were a relation of some kind. I'm still trying to test that theory. When I first received my hard copy of the Orella family tree, I spent most of my time creating my tree on Ancestry.com and while I added folks from both sides of my family, the Orella's were my focus.
These days, I tend to have a much broader scope. I look at my contributions and my research as no longer just for me. It's for my children, all eight of them. The challenge for me is that now instead of just researching my lines (Hadsell, Orella, VonAchen and Barefield), I'm researching lines for both of my ex's because of how it ties to my three biological children, and then my other children because it's important for them to know as their history as well. Plus, then both of my ex's have stepparents and half siblings of their own so it's a challenge to do that research and tie family together, maintaining biological lineage, but also developing the narrative genealogy that makes "Family History."
Do you have a favorite genealogical discovery?
My favorite genealogical discovery had nothing to do with any of MY family history, but with a family I have never met, but feel like I know them. When I still lived in Tucson, Arizona, I came to rescue an old family photo album from an antique store. It belonged to a gentleman (Knowlton "Tote" Carson) who served in WWII and lived primarily in Kansas during the 1950's and 1960's. It took a few weeks, but I was able to locate "Tote" on Ancestry as well as his wife, their children, his parents etc. No more than three degrees but considering I was researching from scattered handwritten notes on backs of photos and cocktail napkins, I felt pretty powerful in my research skills.
At a local thrift store, I found an alumni medal presented to a "K.E. Carson" of Kansas during the 1959 reunion of the Rainbow Division (42nd Division of the US Army). I also found two small silver pocketknives that were inscribed with Knowlton's nickname and last name. One of them also had the birth dates of Mrs. Knowlton Carson (aka "Dot" Carson) and his three children. Everything kept placing the Carsons in Kansas, but I and the trinkets and photo album were in Arizona. I eventually found out that Mr. and Mrs. Carson’s son took care of them as they grew older and moved to Arizona because of its warmer climate. After his parents passed away the son had some financial difficulties that resulted in selling or donating much of the family possessions, which is how the album found its way to me.
(interview continues in comments)
