52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #1: In the Beginning

It's 2025 (time flies!) and one of my goals for this year is to post in my much neglected blogs, this one included. Every week I'm falling down various genealogy rabbit holes, but I struggle to organize the information in shareable stories. Luckily, Amy Johnson Crow's incredibly informative blog has just the solution - 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks. The theme for Week 1 is In the Beginning.

In the beginning, I didn't have much information on any family lines. I knew the names of my grandparents and great grandparents. I knew the heritage of some ancestors - French, Irish, Portuguese. I read everything I could on how to research, pre personal computers, from a distance. I wrote away for birth, death, and marriage certificates. I stumbled along, frustrated, and didn't get very far until I discovered the forums on Ancestry.com and received breakthrough information on one surname's line. The breakthrough came to me courtesy of a researcher who'd seen one of my posts on the forum. I'd always known my Cormier line was French and that my grandfather had had relatives in Canada. What I didn't know was the Cormiers were Acadian, and that there was a wealth of information on Robert Cormier and his son Thomas and their descendants in Canada and the U.S.A. If you're a Cormier in North America, you can trace your ancestry back to them. The early Acadians have been well researched, and I'm forever grateful to the kindness and generosity of that genealogist who graciously shared the information with a very clueless me. The skills I gained confirming those lines were very helpful as I started branching off into researching other lines and gave me the confidence to try incorporating genetic genealogy as well, which has proven extremely helpful in breaking through walls and locating ancestors of family who were adopted.

So, in the beginning there was confusion, frustration, and inexperience. But in the beginning there were also many lessons, many hints, many generous people wanting to help. Everyone was a beginner at some point. Everyone was learning, building skills, and trying to figure out how to maneuver online. Whenever a new record, a new location, a new ancestor, a new story, a new clue is uncovered, I'm that much closer to answering one research question and at the beginning of asking another.

52 Ancestors #3: Longevity - Aunt Regina

Week three's theme for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge was Longevity.

One of the first ancestors who came to mind was my great aunt Regina (Cormier) Kavolius. Born in 1907, she was the fifth child of 14 to Simeon C. and Alice (Goguen) Cormier. Her parents had immigrated from Canada, and her father was working as a printer when she was born. She was employed as a proof reader at Norwood Press and Plimpton Press for many years and had proofread the 1932 story "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" by Julie Lane (pen name of Amelia C. Houghton). In 2009 as Norwood's oldest resident, Regina was presented the Boston Post Cane. Her obituary made mention of making afghans for her extended family through the years. I remember the one she had made for my parents, a gift after they had gotten married.

Regina died in June 2010 at the age of 102.

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #47: Thankful - Domingos J. Silva

This Thursday was Thanksgiving in the U.S., and the theme for this week's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge is Thankful. What or who are you thankful for finding in your genealogy research?

I could have answered this in so many different ways, but I've decided to write a little about my great grandfather Domingos Jose da Silva, known sometimes as Senhor Ramos, because finding a small bit of information on him enabled me to confirm other people and events in my tree and to find some more information on my grandfather and his brothers.


He was born around 1877 in Brava, Cape Verde Islands, back when C.V. was still a territory of Portugal, and married my great grandmother Domingas Alves on July 30, 1906. He along with all of his sons (except for two), his son-in-law, and many cousins, in total more than 50 brave men, set sail on a clandestine, transatlantic voyage to the U.S. aboard the packet ship Matilde on August 1943. It was a time of famine on the islands, and the voyage was clandestine because of war time restrictions on maritime travel. The Matilde never reached its destination and was lost with all souls on board, leaving those on the island devastated.

I grew up with the story of the Matilde, and how my grandfather, his brothers, and his father had all perished in the sinking of the Matilde in 1943, but those left behind were still pained by the memories of the men aboard and the ship lost at sea. It was difficult to speak of, and still is for many of the descendants, and so, although I always knew the story, I didn't find out until much later, after uncovering some small bit of information on Domingos J. da Silva (Sr. Ramos), in addition to reading what Ray Almeida had written about the packet trade, and finally finding a blog post about the Matilde, that there was a play of the event written by Artur Vieira called Matilde, Voyage of Destiny, which I later was able to track down, thanks to a library exchange, and read. I'd seen a copy of the Matilde's passenger list more than a decade ago, and had been told that there was a monument to the men of the Matilde, but I was finally able to see photos of the monument, in addition to a photo of my great grandfather Domingos.

Quick Introduction

I've been interested in genealogy since I was a child. I didn't start researching until the 90s, and it's only within the last few years, thanks to DNA testing, that I've actually broken through a few research walls (although there are still many walls yet to be broken!). I've decided to start a genealogy focused blog where I can share some of the research I've done and also any information on genealogy in general that I might happen upon. I'm still learning, and every week I have a tendency to fall down some ancestor rabbit hole so the blog will be a way to organize and share all my information! Part of the plan is to go over the 2018 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge and start using the prompts in the weekly challenges. Since I'm starting late, I may skip some weeks's prompts or do several in one week.

Hopefully my little blog will be of interest to more than just myself. Feel free to give a little "wave" if you stop by. :)