Nation-wide Search for Granath Relatives

I am trying to collect and compile any information that I can find about the various Granath/Granat families in the United States.   This project started trying to figure out all the points on the life timeline of my great-grandfather, Alfred Granath and also trying to keep track of my cousins by the dozens!   There are lots of us!

A few notes about the mysteries of Alfred:

1) Aunt Ruth mentioned several times that she thought his name was either Oscar Alfred or Alfred Oscar.   I didn't ever hear her say why she thought that was the case, she did not elaborate on the statement and I'm sorry to say I didn't ask.   In my research, I have not ever found any document to support this.   Please if you have some ideas, let me know!  I do have a document that his son, Walter Edward Granath, made with his son, Patrick Ivan Granath in 1960, that clearly says, "Alfred G. Granath".    It is my speculation (without any proof whatsover!!) that if his middle initial *was* G, it might have been George, because George is a Granath family name.   At one point, I thought it might be Gene, because it, too, is found in our family, but I believe it came from another family line.)

2) His death and burial place are still unknown.   There is an "A. Granath" who is the right age, who was buried in a pauper's grave in Shreveport, Louisiana on June 14, 1913.   I have collected the death certificate, sexton's report (burial) and death notice (no obituary), published record books and city burial cards.  I have searched for hospital records, doctor records, coroner's reports, city directories, funeral home records and any kind of notice in the Colorado newspapers.   His death certificate is marked "state pauper" and "non-resident".   I have emails from the Genealogy librarian, Joe Slattery at the Shreveport Library, where he and I have talked through every other method of finding any records.  I've looked for coroner's reports at the LSU Shreveport Archives.   I have researched his cause of death.   There is no informant listed on the death certificate, other than the doctor, so who knew his name and age?  It did have "Arcadia, LA", what did that mean?   Why was he there, if this is our Alfred?   There are NO other Granaths that I have found in Louisiana at that time, although there were a few "Granat"s in New Orleans.

If you have any thoughts or want to see any of these records (or hear about the search) drop me an email.   Or I will consider a followup blog post and just post them here. :)

 THE COUNTDOWN IS ON!

I am busy preparing for Rootstech 2024 - scheduling, contact Relatives, making friendship bracelets and yes, even laundry and packing.   Once again, I am going to Salt Lake City in person and once again, I am soooooooo excited!   I have some fantastic projects that are happening at the library that I will be following up and learning about while I'm there, too, and just the excitement of "What's new?" is electric.

Now, why am I posting?   Because I want to encourage YOU to get ready for Rootstech also!   

Yes, you can attend online again this year FOR FREE!

If you are new to this, here are my suggested steps:

1) Create a free familysearch account and enter a SMALL amount of your family data.  Just you, your parents and grandparents.   Very quickly you will likely find that your people are already in the FamilyTree (this is a collaborative world tree of everyone), so I would suggest you do NOT add anyone else right now until you get the hang of it.  Its a little tricky to get everyone correctly connected, please get help with this if you are new to familysearch.

2) Once you have that done, register for Rootstech online for free:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/registration/

3) Download the phone app.

4)  Take a look at the classes available.  I HIGHLY suggest that if you can, you set aside the entire day just to watch and learn when it is live.   Almost everything is recorded to watch later if you need to, but its just so much more fun watching it broadcast live.   You can select classes and build your watch schedule online.

5) Download the syllabus for each class this week and print it so you can take notes on it.  It also gives you a good idea of what they will talk about, so you can switch to another session if its not that helpful to you.

5) Click on Relatives at Rootstech.   Tips:   Use the phone app, click on Contact to add them to your contact list so that they will stay there after Relatives is closed for the year.  Also, click on each persons relationship to you and screenshot it.   I create a spreadsheet with a tab for each ancestor, and add their contact info into it.  I'm sending a short mesage to each one, asking if they are going in person (if so I ask to meet and take a pic) and give them my email address and intro of myself and my family.  I sure hope everyone responds!   My goal this year is 100 new 'cousins' befriended!   Plus follow up with those from last year that I never heard from again LOL...

I've been watching all the social channels for podcasts and video information about it before I go.  Let me know if you watch or see anything exciting!   And send me a message through relatives if we are related, please!!!

So stay tuned for more of my Rootstech updates!!

Happy National Family History Month!   I have SOOOOO much planned for this month, here is my very first tip of the month:

I also recently read on the MyHeritage blog that we can upload DNA data to MyHeritage this week and enjoy free access to all DNA features.   So, if you haven't already done this, I'd say, hop to it!

Genealogy Sharing - Kyla Style

I have long been concerned with how to share all I find out about my family lines with my living relatives.   

In case you haven't noticed, I pretty much do genealogy 24x7, especially now that my littles have become big peeps making their own way in the world.  Not to mention that I now get paid to help other families research and grow their family trees and all my training hours help me do my job better... you get the idea.   I love this stuff.  

I do realize, however, that the things that I know about genealogy are sometimes not common knowledge and not all the things I find will be of interest to all of my family lines.   

I call almost everyone 'cousin', because in some way they are.   That whole 2nd, 3rd, 4th, removed thing is something that still gets a bit confusing to me, so DON'T worry if you (or I) don't always get our relationships explained right.   Family is complicated, yall!  ITS OK to mess it up sometimes.  You have my permission!

My idea:  a Sunday evening zoom call where I will be giving little explanations about interesting family stuff.   Right now, its on zoom and recorded to post to youtube.   For now, its going to be my Granath/Goodwin/Covington/Rinker family, because I have recently been given an incredible gift - my cousin Joe has sent me 11 boxes of photos, negatives, slides and other priceless family heirloom items.  As I scan, process and document them, I want to share them with my cousins by the dozens all over the world, so this is my best idea for now.   If it doesn't work, we'll "drop, kick and punt" and try something new.  Another reason is because I researched those lines quite a bit on my Utah trip and want to share that juicy new stuff.  Don't worry Ogle/Hawkins/Rue family, if it works out, I'll do an afternoon call for yall once I get a routine going!

If you would like an invite to the zoom call to hear it live, let me know, otherwise please watch the recording on youtube.   Thanks!!

Click here to watch:

Kyla's Granath DNA comparision video

Wild and Crazy Texas Woman is Related to Half of Rootstech

 Hi, cousins and everyone!   Randy Seaver on his Genea-Musings blog, gave a challenge: 

"What is the most wild, crazy, off-the-wall, or really stupid thing you have done in pursuit of your ancestral families and their family history?".   Here's what might be mine... yall be the judges...

A couple of weeks ago, I did something most of my people considered a bit crazy.  I decided that this was the year I would attend "Rootstech".  In person, by myself, knowing no one, flew from Texas to Utah, just for genealogy. Ok, not JUST genealogy.   THE largest genealogy conference IN THE WORLD.  So, what was crazy?  You see, this was the very first vacation in my entire life that I went by myself anywhere fun, just for me.   It felt wild and crazy and off-the-wall, and some might even say really stupid.  But, yall, I grinned from ear-to-ear for 5 days straight, every waking moment.

You see, my 'alone' vacation wasn't alone at all.   I was in a town full of like-minded genea-nuts, and I was at a convention with almost 7,000 of my closest friends, a bunch of whom I was convinced were my 'cousins'.

The conference is hosted by FamilySearch and before I left, I downloaded this nifty app they created called, "Relatives at Rootstech".  So, through the app, FamilySearch said that online and worldwide, there were 26,468 of my relatives 'attending' the conference that were registered.  I wasn't surprised.   I have a LOT of family, yall.

Walking down the tunnel to get on the plane at 5:10 am, I turned to the lady beside me and said, "I wonder how many of us are going to Rootstech?" and she actually squealed!  "ARE YOU?" and I said, "Yes, my first time!", to which she replied, "ME TOO!" and we sat together and talked and talked all the entire flight.   She had done about 10 years of research with lots of dead ends, and was hoping to advance her research skills.   She hadn't learned much about Rootstech before she left, so I told her about the app, how to pick sessions and make the most of her time, all the suggestions I had read by the veterans and what to expect.   When I told her about "Relatives at Rootstech", she said she didn't think she would have many because she didn't have much of her family added to FamilySearch Family Tree, which is the collaborative shared world tree that powered the app.   Nevertheless, as SOON as the plane stopped rolling, she pulled out her phone, turned it off airplane and looked me up.   YEP!   You guessed it.  We were 10th cousins...

And that is how my entire week went.   EVERYWHERE I went, I was checking the app and collecting cousins.   Wednesday, when I went to check in, I found out there is a little toggle to view only "Relatives in person at Rootstech".  It said I had 653 coming to Salt Lake.  By the end of the evening, I had found 7 of them!   They were each SO surprised!  (Hint:  I really wasn't at all surprised, although I was tickled every time.  I often say I'm related to 1/2 of Texas, most of Georgia and any other place big enough for a dot on a map.)  

Thursday, I started messaging cousins through the app, asking if they wanted to meet up.   There was a special area called, "Cousin Corner" with photo opps and props for this purpose!  I found 11 cousins that day! 

Friday, I found out a fun app search feature called "Relatives Near Me".   It would show me people standing or sitting around me!!!!   Mind blown!   That day, I logged and met 23 more new relatives!  Three of them were 4th cousins!  So close!

Saturday was a short day, and I was concentrating on making it to all of the vendors I had yet to visit.  And I still managed to locate 7 more new cousins!

There were so many, I forgot to take photos with about half of them.  There's always next year, I guess.

And yes, I exchanged contact info with all of them, and have emailed them now to share research.  And I am still messaging all of them through the amazing app!

So, perhaps talking to all of these 'new' cousins was a crazy thing, but man it was so fun!

I'll be blogging more in the coming weeks about the classes, the booths, the speakers, the music, the walking, the Lehi city archives and the FamilySearch History Library.  What, did you think all I did was find cousins all week? :)  Stay tuned for more of this grand adventure...

Me and my kin:

Celebrating My Mom, November 2022

This past Saturday was my mother's birthday.   She was born Dolores Peggy Jane Granath on November 12, 1930 in Dolores, Colorado.   Yes, named after the small Colorado mining town that was the birthplace of both her mother, Blanche Ella Goodwin and her father, Walter Edward Granath, where they had married in 1916.   They moved around the mountains a bit, having children almost every two years like clockwork.   Walter worked at whatever jobs he could find, and they lived off of much of what they could grow or raise.   In spring of 1930, times were very tough.   Blanche's half-sister, Leda Crabill and her husband Bob White, had a 'successful' trucking business in the oil boomtown of Hobbs, New Mexico, and told them the oil patch was hiring.   That summer, Walter and Blanche made the difficult decision to move their family to Hobbs before school started in the fall, and when the time came, Bob drove up with one of his trucks to bring the entire brood down south.   Their first 8 children ranged in age from 12 to 18 months old. However, Blanche was pregnant with baby #9.  So, she stayed in Dolores with BOTH her parents and in-laws keeping watchful eye, and a few months later, Peggy entered the world.   When this little joy was only 2 weeks old, she and her Momma traveled on the train to finally join the rest in Hobbs.

My mom, Peggy has been gone from this earth 16 years.   I feel like it was a lifetime ago, and yet, only yesterday.  I still miss her every day, still talk to her every day in my head and prayers, and many of her traits I see in both of my children.   They have her kind spirit, her tough stamina.  Might we say stubbornness? Yes, I have that trait, too.   And both were also gifted with her beautiful, quick laughter and her absolutely unbelievable musical talent.   She would break out in a song at the drop of a hat, constantly all day long, and she knew all the words to thousands of songs.  Life had a soundtrack and my mom hummed along.  Yes, both of my children are thus gifted AND unable to live without music playing.

I wanted to write this post to celebrate my favorite memories of her, but there are just too many to process, even now.  So, I'm going to add a favorite photo and close.    This one is so classic, because she LOVED Christmas and the holidays.  I'm going to celebrate extra this year, just for her.  I am so thankful that she was my mother and that we will be together again someday in His glory.  I love her so much.

Mom loves the holidays!

Now, for my Granath cousins.  A little further back for today's post. This is Pappy (Walter Edward Granath)'s WW1 draft registration card. June 2, 1917. Two interesting facts. He put his birthdate as 1892, when I'm fairly certain it was 1891 (maybe he was supposed to register before turning 25, so he 'miswrote' it? very commonly done!!!) and also, they were about 4 months pregnant with Ruby. Another thing that I know. His oldest brother, John Preston Granath, was unsure of his own birth year, as he says on an oral history tape, "I was there, but I don't remember the exact year, ya know!"