How the Genealogy Bug Bit Me

At more than 40 years old, I’ve been blessed to grow up around extended family, at least for one side of my family. (Unfortunately, my dad’s side lived at least a five-hours drive away in southern Iowa and northern Missouri.) When I was in second grade, we moved to my mom’s hometown of Rock Rapids, IA, where at first we lived a mile from my maternal grandparents, Gerald and Isabelle (Kellihan) Munns.

Getting to Know My Grandparents

For about five years, it took us just a few minutes to drive to grandma and grandpa’s house. There were also many summer days when we rode our bikes to their farmhouse. When I was in middle school, we moved to the second house on their farm – meaning I was just a few minutes’ walk from my grandparents’ living room and kitchen, where I spent countless hours as a pre-teen, teen and young adult just visiting with them.

We talked about the Cubs, the Twins, my grandma’s favorite cooking shows, politics, religion, farming, my schoolwork and studies, the county fair, traveling the country and the world, my grandpa’s time in the Navy (in WWII in Jacksonville, San Francisco and the South Pacific), baseball, a lot more baseball, and family. I learned about my grandparents’ parents and siblings, and their extended family.

Making Family Connections

Their olive green couch is where I started learning about my family tree and heritage. I also discovered my grandparents had a book about the history of their local community and county dating from being settled by European emigrants to the year 1922, known as “Buncombe to 22 Iowa Gen Web.” I devoured reading that book and the stories.

When I was in college, I worked and traveled abroad in Europe the summer between my junior and senior years. My friend and I visited Ireland for several days, flying in to Dublin and (her) driving across the beautiful country to Galway. We wanted to visit the West Coast of Ireland, and picked Galway because my grandpa said we had ancestral ties there. At age 20-21, I hadn’t completed the right research to know where to visit in Galway, so we simply visited the beautiful town, region and cliffs.  While in Ireland, I made sure to buy grandma a shamrock vase of Tara china. (Tara is the ancient capital of Ireland and a family name.)

I got to know a little more about my Irish heritage shortly after college, when I worked part-time (alongside my full-time job) at Mrs. Murphy’s Irish Gifts, an Irish gift store in Sioux Falls, SD. I went back home and visited grandma and grandpa and learned more. I’d bring them an imported piece of china, crystal or jewelry from the store. I also brought grandpa a brown tweed, walking cap.

Time for Trees

Then, in 2011, when I was pregnant with my third child, both my maternal grandpa and my paternal uncle each gave me a stack of papers with handwritten family trees, as they knew about my growing interest in genealogy. Each side was hoping I’d find some details about family legends – are they true and if so, to what extent? The key legends were:

• That my grandma Isabelle’s family had ties to famous Scottish poet Robert Burns, author of Auld Lang Syne
• That my grandma Isabelle’s mom had a mysterious past and they didn’t know much about her background
• That my dad’s side had a tie to Jesse James and his gang – which was interesting because my dad was fascinated with the old west and treasure hunting when I was growing up and up until he died

With two stacks of trees in hand – I started to digitize the info by entering it into the Ancestry app while we were on a road trip. Hints started popping up, and I was as fascinated as my dad had been about the old west. I kept track of some family ties and used my time wisely researching during my maternity leave. (I was pretty much addicted to Ancestry and Pinterest during that winter maternity leave.)

Sharing the Learning and Journey

Since then, I’ve learned so much more, traveled to and sites cemeteries near and far, visited with genealogists and spent countless hours understanding where I came from and who I am. My kids, especially my oldest who has an interest in history, have also learned and shown some interest. And my husband has literally driven me down low-maintenance country roads, walked through cemeteries, and traveled across the ocean to make connections.

To be fair, I also started entering his family tree in Ancestry, and we’re working those angles, too. That’s a whole other realm for me, since he is largely German, and I don’t have as much experience researching those roots compared to England and Ireland. But I’m willing and interested in learning. I’ve been down wrong paths, interesting paths and on some family lines, I can trace back to the 1300s! Others, I can’t get beyond three generations. So, the journey continues as I learn – and now share with my family near and far – on my blog.