Instagram Great Gran Day!!

I'm participating in the Celebration of the Proclamation of the Family.  Today we are posting photos of our ancestors.  I uploaded all the photos my mother brought me about a year ago.  I was so excited to have some of my ancestors!  Unfortunately, they were all ME!  A few of the photos have others in them, so I will include those, but they are still just my parents and one grandparent.  However, after the photos, stay tuned for a great story that happened to me this week in the family history world! :-)

This is my mother:

Forty ish years ago.  (And that cute little person is me.)  Here she is 20 ish years ago:

And this is her today:

She is an amazing woman!  She has such persevere and determination.  I love you Mom!!

Here is a photo of her father:

His name is OB Biggs.  I think that naked baby is me too.  I wish I had a photo of my grandmother or of them together.  I actually do have one of her, but I didn't find it to get it scanned.  My mother mostly grew up in Texas.  We lived there when I was a little girl.

Here is my amazing family history story (on the other side of the family):
This week I opened a newsletter from New Family Search (Here's the letter.) announcing a new feature of their website, search records.  I thought, I'm going to try that.  I had a particular line in my family tree where the information just kind of died after my great-great grandparents.  So I pulled up my information and the ancestor I was looking for and hit the button.  In just seconds, I was able to view all the historical records family search had on file that might match my ancestor.

I found my ancestor and some of his family on the 1880 census records!!  I also found another child that I was unaware of.  Plus, with the information on the census, I was able to pinpoint his birthday within a year and to know that his wife's death date was before the census because he was listed as a widower, all information I did not have. I put that information into my family tree files.  That information allowed me to then request their names be cleared for temple ordinances, which they were.

Here is the coolest part of the story.  In looking over the records and trying to discern if these were indeed my ancestors, I recognized the name of the family above them.  Wait!  I think that family is also in my line!  I went back to my family tree and sure enough there they were!!  It would appear that two families in my line were at one time neighbors, as the census was not listed alphabetically.  Their children grew up in the same neighborhood.  Now their children did not eventually marry but their grandchildren did and happen to be my great-grandparents!!!  How cool is that??  I went looking for the records of one family and on the same record found two!

I do not have photos of these ancestors, but I will keep looking!  Another amazing feature in the newfamilytree program, I can attach that record to my ancestor!  (See how in the letter linked above!)

I LOVE this work!  I still have to figure out how to link them here (My Family Search) but maybe I'll do that later today.