Family Ties

One of the guidelines for new family historians is to contact older family members for information. I constantly tap my parents for information and recently wrote a letter to my mother's brother who is in his late 80's.

I was so excited last night to receive a phone call from my uncle. Some of the things he told me about the family I had also been told by my mother but there were other stories that I had never heard. He is going to send me some photos and information on our Russian side of the family. He said he has the names of the towns that they were from in Russia. Unfortunately he does not have any information on the Jefferson Davis possible relation, so my search continues for that.

It was really great to hear my uncle's voice on the phone. I have not seen him in about 10 years and we spoke for about 30 minutes. Families just don't stay in one place as much as they did years ago. Looking at the census data, I find the families all clustered around each other, including the obituaries which showed them passing in their home town. There were also families that were on the move to survive and explore as well.

My uncle had just returned from visiting his home town in Parsons, Kansas. He said the city is about half the size it was pre WWII. The main industry was the railroad and farming and today there is very little industry in the area. West Mineral, Kansas, another childhood town of my mother and her family, was a small town and is even smaller now.

Now I can't wait to get the information package from my uncle in the mail.

My grandmother, Olive Davis, photo taken at the time of her engagement.