My nemesis and my motivation in genealogy is my great-great-grandfather, Caleb Trask. You’ll hear me off and on refer to him for one reason or other. My grandmother had written down her ancestry back four generations, except for his parents. Thus I launched into genealogy.
About 27 years ago, I set out to find his parents. To this date I have not been able to prove his parentage. However, I do have a lot of clues. I have also worked at tracing his descendants, most of which are my line. The rest are thin or stopped altogether.
Thanks to the Internet I recently discovered the continuation of one of those thin lines, extended. Caleb’s son Alvin Emerson, or A.E. Trask as he was known was my great-grandfather. Alvin had two brothers and two sisters that grew to adult hood.
Albert was one of those siblings. Caleb specifically spoke of Albert in his will. Albert would not receive his inheritance until he forsook his worldly ways of drinking! I don’t know if he ever did or not. I did hear a story that Albert would sleep off his inebriation in the local Mill. So the owners bought a guard dog. That was no problem. Albert just brought treats to the dog and he continued his habit of sleeping at the mill. I digress yet again.
Albert had a son named Arly Bert. And for some sort-of obvious reasons he went by Bert. I discovered he had a son named “WVT” – which comes so recent that I will not divulge his full name. What I discovered was that WVT died rather recently – in genealogical terms: 2000.
I found out that WVT is WVT, Sr. and WVT, Jr. survived him! Well…working in a library and being a genealogist sure helps in knowing how to track people down. Sort of.
I found where Jr’s home is, and I found his wife’s name and phone number. I don’t know as yet whether Jr. is living or not. I do find it odd that I could find his wife and not his. But, be that as it may, the next step was to trying calling this dear lady out-of-the-blue and see if she will talk to some stranger.
Saturday I sat down with the phone and took a deep breath. What was I going to say to her? She didn’t know me from Eve. I tried to form some idea in my head. Would she even talk to me? Would she even answer the phone?
I picked up the phone and dialed…
(to be continued…)
About 27 years ago, I set out to find his parents. To this date I have not been able to prove his parentage. However, I do have a lot of clues. I have also worked at tracing his descendants, most of which are my line. The rest are thin or stopped altogether.
Thanks to the Internet I recently discovered the continuation of one of those thin lines, extended. Caleb’s son Alvin Emerson, or A.E. Trask as he was known was my great-grandfather. Alvin had two brothers and two sisters that grew to adult hood.
Albert was one of those siblings. Caleb specifically spoke of Albert in his will. Albert would not receive his inheritance until he forsook his worldly ways of drinking! I don’t know if he ever did or not. I did hear a story that Albert would sleep off his inebriation in the local Mill. So the owners bought a guard dog. That was no problem. Albert just brought treats to the dog and he continued his habit of sleeping at the mill. I digress yet again.
Albert had a son named Arly Bert. And for some sort-of obvious reasons he went by Bert. I discovered he had a son named “WVT” – which comes so recent that I will not divulge his full name. What I discovered was that WVT died rather recently – in genealogical terms: 2000.
I found out that WVT is WVT, Sr. and WVT, Jr. survived him! Well…working in a library and being a genealogist sure helps in knowing how to track people down. Sort of.
I found where Jr’s home is, and I found his wife’s name and phone number. I don’t know as yet whether Jr. is living or not. I do find it odd that I could find his wife and not his. But, be that as it may, the next step was to trying calling this dear lady out-of-the-blue and see if she will talk to some stranger.
Saturday I sat down with the phone and took a deep breath. What was I going to say to her? She didn’t know me from Eve. I tried to form some idea in my head. Would she even talk to me? Would she even answer the phone?
I picked up the phone and dialed…
(to be continued…)