Random Fact
How often have I used the term Random Fact. I say “random facts’ to my husband all the time. Sometimes those facts interest him other times he just looks at me with his chocolate eyes like I am some alien.
Here is a “random fact” for you all. My husband thinks I talk too much. I find this funny because I am an introvert that is very awkward talking to people. He is one of a few that I feel comfortable just letting go and being me with.
About another “random fact”? I learned today that I cannot spell KALAMAZOO…… without singing the song. Every time I tried without singing it I would spell it wrong. Do you know the song “I got a gal in….K.A.L.A.M.A.Z.O.O what a gal…”
In the end all these little random facts make up the bigger picture of who I am. And when we are digging in the past I find it is the random facts that help piece the puzzle together. It’s the little facts tucked in between dates or lines of a will. It’s the notes in the family bible that give us just a bit more of the story.
How often have you looked at your research and felt frustrated. Then one little hint comes your way that leads to another… then possibly to the person you had been searching for?
I was struggling for a long time to find my Grandfather’s father. What I had been told was that after his wife past away he moved back to Ohio where his people were originally from. I did not know where in Ohio and no one left in the family knew where.
At one time I thought I found him. William Green buried in the same cemetery as Olive Mae Bixby his wife and my grandfather’s mother. If this William were the right one he did not move to Ohio and he was married to two women at the same time. I was baffled by this and sat on it for a while. My first thought was that would explain the divide between the children, my grandfather and his siblings. But it did not feel right.
Then one day I was thumbing through my Grandmother’s wedding scrapbook. I had never paid any mind to the “random facts” that were in there. That scrapbook had the announcement about their wedding that was in the newspaper. In this document it listed so much information in one short clipping. And then there it was William Green of Ohio. With a few short searches I was able to find him and even his new spouses name, Ethel Sipes.
I was sitting on that random fact for all these years and never would have thought that the information was right there in my hope chest.
Have you had any random facts help you tackle a brick wall?