This really shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but one gratifying side benefit to building a family tree is “discovering” living relatives you didn’t even know existed. It’s an extra bonus when that person is also interested in discovering and sharing family information, stories, and photos.

Since I joined a Facebook group for Ancestry.com members a few months back, it’s been amazing to see the many ways there are to delve into the past. Some use multiple platforms, others create intricate spreadsheets. Still others keep a paper trail and print out every tree. The goal of some is to find a specific relative, or to answer a generations-old question about parentage. For some, DNA plays a critical role.

Rather than becoming overwhelmed with the possibilities (and to keep this retirement project a fun one), we’ll just say my approach is …

Baby steps

Mom used to laugh when she recalled my efforts to walk as an almost toddler.

… because I made absolutely no effort. None.

Apparently, I scooted around on my rump for many months past the due date for most little ones to stand up and walk. I never crawled.

Mom spoke of the day we visited with relatives and one of her Cassidy uncles (I’m thinking it was Walter, but it may have been Christy) couldn’t stop laughing at the sight of my method of propulsion. Oh, the number of britches I wore through, scooting down the sidewalk. (Sorry, Mom!)

This photo was on top of a stack I’d shuffled through the other day. That’s Grandpa Vayo encouraging me to at last take some baby steps. Brother Dave looks mesmerized by the big camera Dad used, with the exploding flashbulb.

Rather than delving into a systematic process that will produce the largest number of relatives and generations possible, Gary and I are in search of family stories. Sometimes we start out with a piece of a story and add to it, other times we take a chance and reach out to a potential relative.

This happened recently, and now we’ve met Gary’s second cousin Robin via email and text. Her grandma Lorena was the youngest sister of Gary’s grandpa George Werne. Cousin Robin was kind enough to send us photos from an album her grandma left her.

This is the first photo Gary’s ever seen of his great-grandpa John Werne.

Of course, our son John is delighted to see he came by his wooly “wizarding beard” honestly.

Robin also sent us this photo of Grandpa George. This view of George is another first for Gary. To this day he farms the same land as John and George once did.

As baby steps took us to the other side of the tree, we learned about the end of life of two other family members.

This is the burial plot for Mary Regan, my Grandma Cassidy‘s oldest sister. Poor little Mary, born in 1893, only lived two years. Her older brother, William, was put to rest by Mary just a few months later, in 1896.

Through Ancestry, I learned about FindAGrave.com, which helped me find not a relative, but a wonderful volunteer. Alison, who presumably lives in the New Haven, Connecticut, area visited the Saint Lawrence Cemetery recently to take photos to add to the memorial pages created for nearly a dozen Regan family members.

Although there is no longer a visible grave marker for Mary and William, we know that the upturned lawn in the foreground is the final resting place for the siblings. Alison was kind enough to explain how sometimes, over the years, weather and groundskeeping may result in markers dropping out of sight, beneath the sod. Some volunteers, it seems, use a metal rod to poke into the ground, in hopes of finding grave markers resting a few inches below the grass.

This rather scattershot process of toddling about looking for clues certainly won’t work for everyone. But it’s a satisfying way for Gary and me to piece together the puzzle of our family’s long and colorful story.

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