I started getting more involved in Find a Grave through a totally random find.

My mother passed away when I was 14 years old. My father had remarried less than a year after her death (they had been separated for several years by then but had not legally divorced.) His new wife at some point had thrown away all the photos she could find that I'd kept in my closet - because she had felt threatened that I wanted to remember my mother.

Fast forward more than fifteen years. By that time I only had maybe two or three photos of my mom, and none of them were very good quality photos. Eventually, it prompted a random Google Search one night (not the first I'd undertaken, but the first that bore any fruit.) I'd been looking in vain for photos of my mother, thinking perhaps some random family member had surely posted something SOMEWHERE in the universe.

What I found instead was Find a Grave. What I found was a memorial to a member of her birth family who I had never met (but who was buried in the same plot she was.)

There were photos, though. Only a few members of the extensive family in that plot had headstones or grave markers.

My mother was one of them. I'd not been to her grave in more than ten years, as it was in a distant part of the country from where I'd lived.

That was what started it. I profusely thanked the photographer for the gift he'd given me - the photos on that memorial, photos of a grave my mother had taken me to since before I could remember (she was visiting her own parents who are buried there.) He replied with original copies of the photos of the site, and the info he provided in that initial memorial started me down the genealogy path.

I knew a little of the family lore, small pieces I could remember more than 15 years after the last possible retelling. But I wanted to piece things together. And I discovered that didn't only lend to my mother's family tree, but to my father's as well.

Find a Grave gave me a start, a stepping stone as you will, and filled in one gap in my information - exactly which graveyard my mother was buried in. And it also led me to wonder about the other people buried there - burials that dated back to 1853 and a family name I didn't recognize.

I chipped away, and found answers. My first suspicion proved correct in how the other families tied in to my own, though research on some of those are still ongoing, as I've not quite identified everyone.

One day, I promise myself as each mystery in my family's past unravels, and others linger on and on. One day, I'll know.

Because my natural curiosity demands it.

In the meantime, I find it pleasing from time to time to cross another 't' and dot another 'i' in my family history.

Who were we? Where did we come from?

And how are we connected? I also in this endeavor enjoy linking the various memorials to each other, finding the tidbits that are missing.

I run a few small memorials, all family members, including the personal page I did finally set up on Find A Grave for my mother (who when I first began this journey didn't have her own, her info was lumped into one family member, an uncle who she never even met due to his death during childhood.)

I'm proud of untangling their history. Giving them their story back, and making sure they're not forgotten.

I started getting more involved in Find a Grave through a totally random find.

My mother passed away when I was 14 years old. My father had remarried less than a year after her death (they had been separated for several years by then but had not legally divorced.) His new wife at some point had thrown away all the photos she could find that I'd kept in my closet - because she had felt threatened that I wanted to remember my mother.

Fast forward more than fifteen years. By that time I only had maybe two or three photos of my mom, and none of them were very good quality photos. Eventually, it prompted a random Google Search one night (not the first I'd undertaken, but the first that bore any fruit.) I'd been looking in vain for photos of my mother, thinking perhaps some random family member had surely posted something SOMEWHERE in the universe.

What I found instead was Find a Grave. What I found was a memorial to a member of her birth family who I had never met (but who was buried in the same plot she was.)

There were photos, though. Only a few members of the extensive family in that plot had headstones or grave markers.

My mother was one of them. I'd not been to her grave in more than ten years, as it was in a distant part of the country from where I'd lived.

That was what started it. I profusely thanked the photographer for the gift he'd given me - the photos on that memorial, photos of a grave my mother had taken me to since before I could remember (she was visiting her own parents who are buried there.) He replied with original copies of the photos of the site, and the info he provided in that initial memorial started me down the genealogy path.

I knew a little of the family lore, small pieces I could remember more than 15 years after the last possible retelling. But I wanted to piece things together. And I discovered that didn't only lend to my mother's family tree, but to my father's as well.

Find a Grave gave me a start, a stepping stone as you will, and filled in one gap in my information - exactly which graveyard my mother was buried in. And it also led me to wonder about the other people buried there - burials that dated back to 1853 and a family name I didn't recognize.

I chipped away, and found answers. My first suspicion proved correct in how the other families tied in to my own, though research on some of those are still ongoing, as I've not quite identified everyone.

One day, I promise myself as each mystery in my family's past unravels, and others linger on and on. One day, I'll know.

Because my natural curiosity demands it.

In the meantime, I find it pleasing from time to time to cross another 't' and dot another 'i' in my family history.

Who were we? Where did we come from?

And how are we connected? I also in this endeavor enjoy linking the various memorials to each other, finding the tidbits that are missing.

I run a few small memorials, all family members, including the personal page I did finally set up on Find A Grave for my mother (who when I first began this journey didn't have her own, her info was lumped into one family member, an uncle who she never even met due to his death during childhood.)

I'm proud of untangling their history. Giving them their story back, and making sure they're not forgotten.