Happy New Year!
January 1st marks the first day of my 16 Great-Greats Project, where I’ll be documenting the lives of my children’s sixteen great-great-grandparents. Each ancestor is assigned a unique number based on their relationship to my children, and through this journey, I’ll uncover their stories—both triumphs and struggles—using records, memories, and historical context.
This is a time-limited project. For each great-great-grandparent, I have a set number of days to research, write, and post their biography. Once the clock strikes midnight on February 1st, my deadline, I’ll wrap up Hazel’s story with what I’ve collected, and move on to the next ancestor, her husband Thure Emanuel Bergquist. You can find the full schedule here. This does not mean in any way that I will be done telling her story, only that this specific scheduled block of research is limited to a time limit.
Now, I have a confession to make. I’ve had a head start on this research over the holiday. But a little foundational research can’t hurt, right?
To kick off the project, I’m starting with Hazel Elizabeth Quinn, my children’s direct maternal great-great-grandmother. I have introduced Hazel in this post.
As I dove into her life, I quickly realized I needed to understand the context of her early years, but Hazel appears explicitly by name, briefly, in only seven records before her marriage:
- 1909 birth registration (and index).
- 1910 U.S. census
- 1920 U.S. census
- 1926-7 city directory
- 1928 newspaper article
- 1930 U.S. census
- 1932 ship manifest
To build a full narrative, I have to place her within her family in her early years, which meant exploring the lives of her parents, and to a lesser extent her siblings.
And then it hit me—this is going to take forever.
How do I research all sixteen great-great grandparents and thirty-two third-great grandparents in one year?
So, I decided to split it up between two years. This allows me more time to research, compile, analyze, and write. With this new approach, I can dig deeper into each ancestor’s story without feeling rushed, and ultimately, provide a more thorough and thoughtful narrative.
Most of this research will be limited to my home, using online resources and some correspondences, such as county offices and vital statistics services like Vital Chek. While there are also financial constraints, the upside is that this project can grow over time. The stories, like my research, can only grow more informed and detailed over time.
In the next post we will dive into what I’ve learned about Hazel’s father, Marshall George Quinn, and how his life helps to shape the story of Hazel.
Leave a Reply