From my earliest days I can remember my father telling outrageous stories about his childhood. One features riding a horse 5 miles to school during a Nebraska blizzard. I never knew if it was true, but it is repeated off and on at family gatherings. Some of the best stories come from families passing down what they have heard, but many times the story has probably morphed through the years.
When I was a young girl my father told me his family was from Germany, and that "Rock" was an old German name. Years later, I found my fathers family at ancestry.com, and his great great grandfather had immigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1864. I was able to track the family from their original homestead in Braidwood Illinois, where they mined coal, to the Nebraksa farm outside St Libory where some of the family still lives.
Since finding out this useful information at Ancestry, I have kept my subscription and used it when I come across a box of old letters, or a tapestry labeled with someones name and date of birth. I have been able to verify that a civil war charm was authentic, and that some lovely lady never married the man she corresponded with during World War II.
My greatest find was an old inkwell purchased from the family that started the "Rice-Stix" department store in St Louis. The top of the inkwell was engraved with the words, "Uncle Wm. From: Charles", and it was an old heavy glass victorian inkwell. When I bought it at the estate sale, the lady of house told me that it had belonged to one of the Stix ancestors of her late husband who had started the Rice-Stix store in St Louis. She was referring to William Stix who began business in Memphis, and later moved to St Louis. I used ancestry to look up Charles, and found out that Charles was a nephew who was raised by William after Charles father died. Charles went on to found his own department store, "Stix Bauer & Fuller" in St Louis.
In my opinion, ancestry.com is a wealth of information that is very easy to use. If you aren't an antique dealer, it is worth a visit to find out the origin of odd names. My husband's surname is "Yingling", and he didn't know it is an old respected German East Coast name. The original spelling was Yuengling, and one branch of his family started the "Yuengling Brewery".
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