Branch missing on family tree (8/1/05)

I can’t find Wilbur anywhere. I have been looking for him for a couple of months now. I found his wife Mary and his mother-in-law Berthena but no Wilbur. I have found his children strewn across western Ohio. I even found his ancestor who was a private in the War of 1812. Yet there is no trace of Wilbur himself to be found. I finally wrote to one of his granddaughters in Celina and asked if she knew where he was. I have yet to get a reply. She probably can’t find him either.

So who is this elusive Wilbur? No, he isn’t a relative of Waldo of Where’s Waldo fame. He is my great-grandfather, the father of my grandmother. He died before my mother was born. I know that there are plenty of genealogy buffs out there who have traced their own family trees back many generations and that a great-grandfather would pose no challenge at all to them. I am only an amateur. Mostly what I have done is organize bits and pieces of information that have been tucked away in the cedar chest or in various boxes.

I know that he was a farmer and that when my grandmother was little they didn’t have a telephone. Once when one of his many children was sick my grandmother was told to hitch up the horses so they could ride to the next farm over to use the phone to call the doctor. It must have been dark because she swore she saw a man standing in the lane and she was afraid. I was astonished because I thought my grandmother was never afraid of anything. Wilbur went out and showed her that it was only a shadow.

I have a sepia-toned photograph of him holding a baby. On the back is inscribed “Wilbur Gossard and Orville.” My mother has no idea who Orville was or is. It could be Orville Wright for all we know.

This man-hunt for Wilbur has come up because of my future grand-baby. I want her or him to know where she or he came from. I want the baby to know that others in the family had red hair or grey-blue eyes. I want her to know she came from a long line of women who grew violets and did fine needlework. I want him to know he came from a long line of farmers and firemen. I want her to know why she is good with words or why he is a lover of animals. I want the child to know its roots.

This desire to know ones roots takes many forms. The local library offers a periodic class in genealogy. I might have to sign up sometime. I just received a flyer for a community college and genealogy is one of the courses on their list. Office supply stores teem with family tree programs.

There are travel packages that cater to researchers and I understand that the Mecca for this mania is in Utah. It seems that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a gold mine of information on just about anyone who has ever filled out a census form or been issued a birth or death certificate.

Archaeology is genealogy taken to the extreme. Archeology in all its forms is nothing more than people searching for answers to the age old question of “where did I come from?” and “who were the people who lived here before me?” Put another way, genealogy is archaeology personalized.

Every religion has some form of Creator. God created Adam and Eve and the rest of us are their descendants. No, people were created by committee in Central America. No, people descended from monkeys. Wait, I thought people came from a cosmic egg. Are you sure we aren’t an experiment by some alien race? Whatever you believe, the common thread here is that we are all related. Designing a family tree seeks to illustrate just how we are connected one to another.

I may never find out the things I want to know about Wilbur, such as what kind of man was he, what did he like, dislike, and why did he die so young. Even though this baby will probably grow up in Texas some part of him or her will always be from Ohio and Wilbur will live on in his or her genes.[[In-content Ad]]