Rabbit holes and Happy Thanksgiving

So many stories and so many distractions

Nov 28, 2024

I’ve been absent from my writing lately. A combination of post-election ptsd, the shiny pretty of the season and an intention to get serious about publishing what I write have all kept me away from the keyboard. For fun I thought I’d share a roadmap of a recent rabbit hole for your amusement. If you love the people stories behind your genealogy, I’m betting you take similar trips!

I’ve been working hard on organizing digital files and notes and most times it feels like a never-ending job, but I am making progress. However, feeling slightly more bluesy also shows in my meanderings when I find a rabbit hole. I’m less driven to stay on track and tend to follow the interesting story until I get answers.

For example, this morning I was working on an outline for my memoirs, while investigating how GoodNotes, google maps and other internet tools can help with the writing. That brought back a memory of riding my bike with a friend for what felt like miles (we lived in the country) to a local swimming hole.

Curious, I opened google maps to see if I could find that tiny lake and fell into my rabbit hole. In maps, I noticed that there were a few small cemeteries near where I grew up that I had never known about, and I was off…

Below is a list of my “directions” as I wandered away from looking for Welch’s Lake:

Old cemeteries near where I grew up - Oh are any of MY ancestors in these small cemeteries? leads me to findagrave.com to investigate
In the lists of the memorials for the cemeteries I searched for family names and found lots of familiar names but none of my own. Wait! Look at that woman buried in the middle of Iowa in 1863 at NINETY years of age, having been born in 1773 - holy cow what a life she must have lived. She would have been 68 when Iowa territory was first opened up in 1841 - that is old to be on the edge of the frontier! Who did she come with and why???

I’d like to point out here that Sarah Jane “Jane” Lindsley Meeker is not related to me.
Is she on WikiTree (my go to genealogy site)? No, but in looking her listing in FindAGrave.com I see that she came with a son, Lindsley Meeker, who was buried in the same cemetery. That is a unique name; is HE on WT? Turns out he is, along with his wife and family but without parents.
She needs a WT profile. Is she on Family Search? Using the feature from her son’s profile on WT I search for him on FamilySearch and there he is with sources!!! Included in his FS profile is his mother’s, also with sources - gold mine!
I add her profile on WikiTree, finding from notes on FS that the family moved early to Ohio (1830s) where her husband died. She came with her son (and possibly more family) to Iowa after 1845.
Confession - after completing my first draft of this, I got interested in when she came to Iowa and spent another useless hour looking through the census records of her children and even searched for her own record - didn’t find anything conclusive, which makes it hard to step back and say, enough!

Her profile done; I think about the life she lived on the edge of the frontier. Two hours after I started looking for Welch’s Lake, I haven’t found it. Writing about Jane’s life would be a fascinating story but so would so many of my ancestors. And while I have contributed to the health and happiness of our world tree, I’ve done nothing to advance my goals. Sigh….

Climbing back out of the hole, I realize it’s time to get ready to go to dinner! I wasn’t really expecting to get significant work done today of all days, but in writing this all out, maybe the next time I’ll stop before I start and walk around the hole instead of falling in!

At any rate, whatever you do to celebrate or abstain on this holiday, may you have a peaceful and happy Thanksgiving.