I’ve been researching my own family history for over 20 years, since I was just a wee school girl. I remember getting excited about tracing my family line after being assigned a project in middle school. My cousin and I visited the big, downtown branch of our city library and sent letters to strangers in another state, just based on a common surname.

Through that research we were able to identify some likely family connections and created a nice looking family tree that we were proud to reference. Years later as I returned to my research, I found that my new standards for genealogical accuracy had not been met for one of the branches of my family tree. The one for my own surname!

This mysterious great-grandfather of mine has become my nastiest brick wall to bust. And for some reason it bothers me more because this is the line where my own name comes from. I identify with this line of the family much more than with the name Gilson, for example, which I only realized was a family name about a year ago.

In response to this knee-jerk reaction of valuing my surname line more than others, I’ve decided to focus for the next month on the exact opposite – my maternal great-grandmother. I want to relate to her and understand her life more. Maybe it’s the feminist in me, but I want to see myself in her and vice versa.

Part of this new exploration has prompted me to create a Facebook page for my maternal relatives to connect and share family stories, both old and new. Check it out!