In a way, I was interested in genealogy at an early age.
Looking back, it may have begun when I was about 8. In this very odd migration pattern, I learned that my parents had grown up in quite different but similar circumstances. The similarity was that they were both from large, poor families. The difference was that they were a thousand miles apart and of somewhat different ethnic backgrounds.
Dad was from a native American community but since his parents were born after the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 and the diaspora earlier in that century, his family included European Americans. My father not only has blue eyes that I looked into yesterday while joking that he will be 27 next month instead of 101, but his father had those same blue eyes.
My mother was the granddaughter of an Englishman who came with his father as a young adult and "shipbuilders" to Canada in the 1830's. Thanks to some of my cousins who have an interest in genealogy, I have learned that many of their descendants have been born and lived out their lives south of the Canadian border, in the US.
My mother and father, both middle children of large families of kids, seemed to be retracing Mom's life and history of family migration by moving north. No, she was not Canada-born but came home from the hospital as an infant in 1919 only about 5 miles from where Dad and I were yesterday. I think that I should try once again this summer, to find the location of my great grandparents' farmstead on the Idaho Washington border.
Dad asked me yesterday about his own cousins, strangely enough, his youngest uncle also migrated across Oklahoma and Texas, growing very near El Paso before also moving to southern Oregon. Dad and his uncle didn't get along well but I was startled to learn that they lived in Central Point (
@Rhodie Ranch 
) when we visited with my grandmother. I was about 9 and Dad's cousins were not much older than I was. I woke up this morning dreaming about their home that I visited that day, oh so many years ago ... how about that?
I never saw them before or since, and yet, that family had crossed half a continent to live just about a dozen miles from where I did ... Like I said, Dad didn't
get along with his uncle. Now, Dad wants to know about those kids ...
.
Steve
.
