Yep, it’s that image again.
Last week I begged for your help to disprove my theory of incest. My friend Cathy commented, “The biggest sore thumb I noticed was – who is Norma?”
Exactly?! Who is Norma. I had already tried a bunch of things and just couldn’t find her. But after Cathy asked the same question I was asking, I decided I really needed to find her. I rededicated myself and used all of my fancy, sneaky, super-smart search strategies and I got a whole lotta nothin’.
But give me a puzzle and I just can’t stop. So I revisited everyone in that matrimonial mess. I found a lot more info – but nothing that answered my core question: Were Robert & Rosey Hyde husband and wife, AND uncle and niece?
The one thing I did find was a hint of Norma. And I found it in an unlikely place. A WWI Canadian Expeditionary Forces Personnel File.
But the really important part…
The absolutely CRITICAL part…
The it-would-have-been-super-easy-to-miss-Norma-completely part…
Norma showed up on page 50 of the file.
That’s right – page number FIVE-OH.
After a whole lotta nothin’, suddenly, there was Norma.
Thankfully I learned the lesson many years ago that many records have more than one page. Some records have more than two pages. And occasionally you will find a record that is a whopping 67 pages long – like the one that gave me a hint of Norma.
Now you probably want to know what exactly I learned about Norma.
And you probably want to know what else I learned about that mess up there.
Here’s the thing – it’s so complicated that my poor brain is still trying to sort it all out. My poor brain is trying to figure out how to even begin to explain what I have learned.
So for now, let me just say that Norma exists. She appears to be a sister of Rose Elvera Hyde Williamson. I know her approximate birthdate. And I know who two of her possible parents are.
The rest is going to have to wait until I can find the words. And it’s going to take more than one post. Because that family up there is a whole mess of crazy.
But my dear friends, this is what I want to leave you with today:
When you are looking at an image on any website – always click to the next image. And then keep right on clicking until you come to an image that is about someone else. The longest record I have ever found was 137 pages. It was also a WWI record.
This WWI Canadian Expeditionary Forces Personnel File was BORRRRRRING! And I like LOVE old records. But it just kept saying the same things over and over and over.
Until it didn’t.
Until it told me that Norma exists. That she is part of my family.
So whatever you do today in your genealogical endeavors, PLEASE, for the love of Norma, CLICK TO THE NEXT PAGE!
More updates on Incest?! coming next week.
Great advice and a fun post to read! I remember when I discovered that there was a second page to many ship manifests and that they disclosed really valuable information. I had to hit myself on the head and go back to every manifest I’d collected to look for that second page.
Thank you Amy. Those page two of Ship Manifests are gold! 🙂
They really are! I was so annoyed when I realized how much I’d missed (but so happy when I went back and saw what I’d missed!).
You must have figured it out pretty early on then because I have no idea how many things I missed before I learned that. Of course I started way before anything was on the computer. Maybe I didn’t miss that much. 😉
Probably not. I only started five years ago. I can’t imagine what it was like beforehand. It must have taken months if not years to find information for every single person.
Yes, it really did. I can’t believe the advancements I have seen in my short life. It is really remarkable.
I loved, loved, LOVED this post! Mysteries are the best part of genealogical research (for me, anyway!). The stranger the mystery, the more I want to dig. I think I am going to refer to this post in my next post! 😀
Thank you! And thanks for stopping by. I love the mysteries too. The more they make me earn it, the more I love them. 🙂
Excellent advice. I learned the same thing – there can be more pages, but you have to look. I found that while it can be dull and unpromising to go through page after page of either the same thing over and over or not very interesting bureaucratic stuff, it’s usually worth the effort. In many years of digging through old records I only had one that didn’t reveal something useful or helpful and that was because there were pages missing from the darn thing and I bet the good stuff was on those missing pages. It’s still a puzzlement about the true relationships you’re trying to untangle. These kind of things are addictive.
Thank you! Addictive is exactly right. I’ve even got my non-genealogist hubby intrigued and I was picking his brain last night for different scenarios to consider to help me think of records to hunt for. He is even remembering who is who – that never happens. 😉 Bummer about your missing pages!
Fortunately the missing pages were for a collateral relation of some distance. I have redrawn diagrams to clarify the information, sometimes just the process of looking at it to redraw it helps. My spouse can’t keep everyone straight, once past the grandparents there’s no point. Careful, though, you’ll have your hubby catching the genealogy bug.
I doubt it, but it would be a problem. I’d have to share my computer with him. 😂