Rhnea Burcham To-Do List

I began my journey of Genealogy when I was walking through the family cemetery, after my grandmothers funeral service. She was the last grandparent I had living. It hit me, I knew very little about her side of our family. I stared my research that very day. As I was taking pictures of all the headstones of relatives that I recognized in order to record the information on them when I return home. I asked my father, who in our family was buried there. He replied, Everyone of them. This was a family cemetery. He was right. They all fit like a puzzle.

I was giving a little confused with all of the surnames that I didn’t recognize. Therefore I took pictures of over 50 names in the Diffee and King side of the family. Thank God for digital cameras.

Most of the information I have entered on the Diffee and King family was first hand. The pictures made it easy to locate the other family members.

Now, if you have been working on your genealogy very much, you have run into those roadblocks that make sit down shaking your head. Before I share a lot, I need to give you a little information. Most of my grandmother’s (18) siblings married my grandfather’s siblings. A lot of family members named their sons after a dad, uncle or grandfather and then started adding the Jr, Sr, 1st, 2nd and so on. I had a lot of double cousins.

The fourth family member I entered was my grandmother, Gertrude Delilah Diffee. This was when I encountered my first experience with a roadblock. Grandmother’s father, Jonathon Roland Diffee had 18 children with two different wives. I uncovered one of grandmother’s sister was entered twice. I contacted my aunt to help me clear it up. She told me mama’s sister was her sister and her Step Mother-in-law. She laughed and explained to me that Mamo’s sister’s husband and their step mother passed away. Mamo’s sister remarried to their Step Mother’s widow. Now she is my grandmother’s sister and her Step Mother-in-law. (Whew). I had a hard time twisting this around in my head.

As they say as the genealogy experts say use your family members to get as much information as you can before going to outreach services. This is a prime example of what they were talking about and it would’ve saved me a lot of time and confusion.

Happy Hunting