Still With Us, In a Way

Well, it's the weekend.

And we made it this far.

Family holding family up as no other can in such times, it's been a week of connecting with relatives over the tiniest of memories. The memories are what help.

But you have to be careful about memories. You never know when they can trigger an unexpected sequel. Memories sometimes have partners. Twins. They can come with company.

A friend of my brother posted a sweet video memorial of him on Facebook from a documentary this man and another creative had taped, a few years ago. Bit by bit, members of the family spotted it and shared it. Though the production itself was well done and thoughtfully framed for the current situation, it was the tiniest of details that got people talking.

A daughter of one of my cousins told me the gestures in my brother's goodbye wave reminded her exactly of her grandmother—my father's sister—and then...triggered those tears...again.

When I think of my brother, I naturally think of my dad. Since I lost my dad pretty early in my adult life, I learned quickly that if I went to see my brother, I somehow could feel like I still had my dad.

That's been years ago now, of course, so the passage of time tricked me into thinking I was free of needing a daddy fix.

Until the daddy fix was gone, too.

A month ago—having no premonition that this family loss was about to befall us—I had started reading a book called Option B. My original reason for that choice was that I had been inspired to read every book I could get my hands on by Adam Grant—though once I got the thing in my hand, discovered to my horror that it was co-authored by Sheryl Sandberg of Lean In fame, the one women's author* sure to elicit paroxysms of criticism from my business-exec sister.

That didn't stop me from reading the book, however. Something else did. The reason the book even exists at all is that Ms. Sandberg had the type of awful experience you wouldn't want to wish on anyone: in an idyllic setting where she, her husband and some friends had taken a respite from their surely hectic work lives, she discovered him dead from a massive heart attack only moments after she had last spoken with him.

The book unwinds her torrent of emotions as she attempted to piece together her life—and her children's—in the aftermath.

It wasn't far into that scenario when I realized there was a backstory chattering away at me from inside my own mind. It was that internal narrative, shouting so loud inside my own head, that distracted me from the words on the page. Uncomfortable, I had to lay the book down.

Why? It reminded me of my own husband's death. Decades ago.

Yeah, those kinds of memories don't go away.

And so a book triggers a memory of life's earlier episodes, and the sense of loss comes back anew. A wave of the hand, a nod of the head or the blink of an eye, and a three minute video transports us from the presence of the one we know, to the one we remembered. It's as if they were here—and then, once more, gone—all over again.

Of course, some of us take the less pragmatic, more hopeful long view of a life beyond life. And there has been plenty of talk about that among us, this past week. But I'm starting to see how life lives on in another way, as well. When I saw my cousin's comment about the video on Facebook—about how a wave of my brother's hand was so exactly like her grandmother's mannerisms—I realized what we were both observing wasn't her grandmother, or my father, but someone neither of us had ever met: their parents, my grandmother Sophie and that Polish mystery immigrant, my grandfather, whom we only knew as John T. McCann.

After all, where do we get those mannerisms from? Aren't they indwelt from the genetic makeup we inherit? The microhistory we share with family members, witnessed minute by minute over a lifetime?

And if Sophie and John would have seen the same film clip, some of those gestures might have reminded them of the generation preceding them—people my father's generation never got to meet, but ancestors just as much.

Some people take sides on the argument about nature versus nurture. Environment versus inheritance. Whatever it turns out to be, we've got it—and we're surely going to pass it on.

And—whatever "it" is—it will become that part of us that lives on after we, ourselves, are gone. And we, while we're still here, become the gift of remembrance to those who do recall that older generation and can recognize it in our eyes, our voice, our gestures. In a way—is it through our DNA?—those who have gone before us do live on. And gift us with that one way of remembering them.

I have no idea how that works, but I'm glad it does. 



*To her credit, a surely kinder, gentler Sheryl Sandberg went on to found the nonprofit organization of the same name, OptionB.org, building a community of sharing and advocating for resilience in the face of many kinds of adversity. 

Still Stuck

Whatever technical glitch locked up my longstanding account at Ancestry, I'm not sure, but I do know—at least after ninety minutes of phone conversation—that it is a problem which will take at least another day to resolve, if not more. I can guess about the source of my difficulties, but hey, I'm not the tech expert.

So I wait.

Meanwhile, Thirza's father Thomas Browne continues to elude me. It didn't help, of course, that he didn't quite make it to the 1900 census. But it wouldn't have hurt, either, if those other census records could have provided a consistent report. Right now, I'm not sure which one to believe.

I already knew something was suspect with the 1880 census. Granted, the Brownes were nearly newlyweds, with their daughter Thirza only one year of age, as reported in that census year. And yes, their home in Weld County, Colorado was home to a town—Greeley—which had been established only eleven years earlier as an experimental utopian society and didn't gain official city status until 1886. With a history like that, it would not be surprising to learn that residents had come from all over.

Thomas Browne's entry, however, seems to have been left blank in the original. The handwriting for the report of his place of birth—as well as that for each of his parents—seems to be quite different from that of the rest of the enumeration sheet. All three blanks were entered in a different hand than the rest of the form, with the abbreviation "Ill." Yet, for both his daughters, the spot for their father's birthplace was left blank. One wonders what the case actually was for this scenario.

Waiting to verify with the next census does us no good, as we've already discovered Thomas' likely demise by 1892. And trying to find him in the previous census, as a single man with the oft-bemoaned common surname Brown would be next to impossible. Even taking the presumptive move of searching for a Thomas Brown with parents Timothy and Caroline brought up nothing of use.

There was one other solution, though—and one I'd already begun exploring. Remember the 1885 Colorado state census? The one where I got baited by the 1880 discovery of next-door neighbors Harvey and "Baby" Pollock and went off on a rabbit trail to discover whether "Baby" was Ralph? Well, I forgot to go back and see if I could find Thirza's family whereabouts in 1885.

So now's the time to check that out.

With this one document, I now have the only other resource upon which I can pin the birth location of our specific Thomas Browne. Hopefully, this one was a more accurate report. Whether it was or not, though, one thing is certain: neither Thomas' father nor mother were reported born in Michigan. The verdict on this pursuit, according to the 1885 tally?

Thomas was from Ohio, and both his parents from Pennsylvania.

While it doesn't cement any connections between the younger Browne and his (potential) parents in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this 1885 record at least provides us a picture of the entire Browne family—sans the one child lost in infancy—in one place.

Above: Excerpt of 1885 Colorado state census for the city of Denver in Arapahoe County, showing Thirza Browne Cole's childhood household. Image courtesy FamilySearch.org.

Locked Out

Hmmmm...as if being in a holding pattern, waiting for the funeral of a sibling to be planned and subsequently coming down with the flu isn't enough...you'd think hauling my miserable self out of bed for a few minutes to write a sorry excuse for a post would at least go smoothly. After all, what was I going to write? That I am still having problems locating Thirza Browne's father—let alone his parents?

Thanks to a fluke of technology, apparently, I can't even access my account at Ancestry.com to refer to the few details I've parked there in a private, unsearchable tree which I use for my genealogical sandbox. And no, it isn't because I failed to renew my account. What I'm wondering is if my antiquated user name—assigned to me during those halcyon days when Rootsweb used to be its own entity—is the sticking point.

All that, however, will have to be resolved later in the morning, not in the wee hours when my far west time zone works against me. Everything—even a Utah-based company—runs on east coast time.

There are, however, other resources, all which will have to be considered without the ability to refer back to the research I've already done on the family. Online tools are great—but only when they're accessible.

That search effort, however, didn't yield much. I tried FamilySearch, looking for a Timothy and Caroline Brown or Browne who might have lived—or died—in Kent County, Michigan, home of Grand Rapids, the place where the photograph I found was originally taken. I tried burial records via Find A Grave, but the only Caroline I found was someone married to a William, not a Timothy. Checking out Seeking Michigan wouldn't work, because the dates are too recent for tracking down my mystery Brownes.

Sometimes, it just helps to know when to quit. I'm getting the clue that now would be an opportune time.

Brown, Browne —Tomayto, Tomahto

It doesn't help, when researching a family's history, when even the family members can't be sure which way to spell their own surname. Especially with a name like Brown. How hard can that be?

In the case we brought up yesterday, the size of the original photograph leads me to believe it was actually a carte de visite. It measures approximately two and a half by a little over four inches, much smaller than the cabinet cards which supplanted that earlier format.

If so, that dates the picture to approximately the 1860s. That, if it is indeed a picture belonging in Thirza Cole's photograph collection, would be a reasonable time to place her grandparents—if we can trust her father's 1880 report that he was born about 1848. If Thirza's father Thomas Browne was the oldest child of this parents, that might put the unknown couple's dates of birth around the mid 1820s. Perhaps they would look that "seasoned" by the time this photo was taken.

Or not. That's a lot of ifs.

There's one other thing. Perhaps you already noticed it yesterday. The front of the photograph bears the words, "Jackson,"—presumably the studio's name—and "Grand Rapids, Mich."

In 1880, Thomas Browne reported his birth being in Illinois, not Michigan. His daughters' subsequent own reports of where their father was born do indeed vary from enumeration to enumeration, but they never seem to settle on Michigan as the reported location.

A cursory glance at records in Grand Rapids for that time period didn't seem to reveal much information linked to that name, either.

But there's one constant in all this. Just like all the records I've seen on Thirza's family, even on the back of this photograph, family members were undecided about which way to spell their ancestors' names.

One entry, the first, presuming from the order of appearance, gave the name in a tight, neat hand: "Grandfather + grandmother Browne." Following that entry was a scrawl much like the one causing me the grief of hesitating between the name as "Thirza" or "Thiega."

Perhaps this was the one whose handiwork we've already observed on others of Thirza's photo collection. Whoever it was, it was someone who decided the spelling should be "Timothy and Caroline Brown."

Another Browne Photo

Working with common surnames—like Brown, for instance, no matter whether it has that fancy "e" at the end or not—can be frustrating.

We've already discovered that the photograph stash marked with the name Thirza Cole belonged to a woman whose maiden name was Browne. Finding out much about her early years has been a challenge. Had it not been for the unusual detail preserved in her own obituary, I'd likely not have been able to trace her whereabouts during that twenty-year span between the 1880 census and the next surviving enumeration.

But before that point? Even after wrestling with this family's history for weeks now, I am no closer to uncovering something fresh and new.

And then, reaching back to that stash of photographs I rescued from an antique store up in California gold country, I pull out another photograph and notice the names written on the back: Timothy and Caroline Browne.

Could they be Thirza's grandparents? Or just a coincidence, merely owing to such a common surname?

The Hardest Part of Family History . . .

...is when it goes from the sweet baby pictures of those innocent first years...

...to the other end of the story.

While that has just happened for my brother, thankfully the outpouring of love and encouragement helps hold us all up.

With all that he accomplished over the years, the one vignette I remember the most, when thinking of my brother, is his theme song from those early years in NYC. If you know him, you may remember...

Delving Deeply Into DNA

Perhaps it's high time I got frustrated over not confirming more than a handful of my umpteen thousand DNA matches. I mean, look at this: I have over one thousand matches—fourth cousin and closer—at AncestryDNA. They won't even count the number anymore. Just "1000+."

That's not all. I have 2,946 at Family Tree DNA. Besides 4,072 at MyHeritage. We won't even go into how I'm losing matches at 23andMe and still managing to stay above the thousand mark for matches there.

Who are all these people?!

Oh, yeah: and I have 532 to work on at Ancestry for my husband. Plus a measly 1,879 at FTDNA, a mere 2,859 at MyHeritage and an irksome 1,078 at 23andMe (the only place where he bests me on DNA matches).

I had heard about DNA Painter, the chromosome mapping tool sweeping the grand prize at this year's RootsTech DNA Innovation Contest. Created by London web developer Jonny Perl, it was a beta app which he revealed he had "launched by mistake." Users didn't think so; the visual display simplifies identifying which matches align with which family lines, streamlining the hunt and peck method of searching for identical surnames in enormous pedigree charts.

Once all the hype about RootsTech itself had subsided, more details began to emerge about DNA Painter. Roberta Estes began a helpful—and thorough—blog series on using DNA Painter. Part One was all I needed, and I leaped for the chance to add my name to the long list of beta testers. I started "painting" this week, adding the details for the few DNA matches I've already confirmed. Soon, I'll have a colorful patchwork framework of my own genetic material—and a separate one for my husband's family—upon which to hang those aggravatingly enigmatic matches which have, heretofore, stubbornly resisted identification.

Hah! Take that, mystery matches!

Meanwhile, I'm still plugging away at my quixotic quest to document all the descendants on all my ancestors' pedigrees. At least to the level of seventh cousin, I'm tracing all my colonial ancestors' families. And yes, I have a long way to go. But at least I can say, in the past two weeks, I've added 124 additional relatives to my mother's tree and 164 to my mother-in-law's tree. Even though I've only added one each to my father's tree and my father-in-law's tree, that still leaves me with 12,731 in my mother's tree, 14,639 in my mother-in-law's tree, 500 in my dad's tree, and 1424 in my father-in-law's tree.

One way or another, I'm finding ways to discover just how those thousands of people whose DNA somehow aligns with mine are actually connected. And in the meantime, I get to paint everything in brilliant colors. Not bad for a research perk.