Fathers and Family History

Photo by Jochen van Wylick on Unsplash

​This weekend is Father’s Day in the United States. A day when we pause to celebrate our dads and grandfathers in our life. For those of us whose loved ones have passed, we have memories to cherish and share. This made me think more about how fathers played a role in our family history. Let’s look.

The obvious thing about fathers is that most of us received our surnames from our paternal line. That’s the name you grew up with and possibly changed when/if you married, you may have hyphenated or kept it depending on traditions and period. Having the father’s last name makes it easier for us to locate our people when doing research. There are plenty of articles about finding our female ancestors. (An aside: Luckily for some records, women are noted by their maiden name in records throughout their life. This is more common in European records than in the United States.)
 
If your family settled in one area for a period of time, you might readily have information about your father, grandfather and even great-grandfather plus their siblings if they remained in the same area. If you haven’t already, take some time to figure out those relationships with neighbors and friends. Going back a couple of generations, you might find that that neighbor was a cousin to your grandfather. It was many years before I realized that my great-grandmother’s aunt lived a few miles away. Current family stories never spoke about that information but by following their individual paternal trees, I was able to find that information.
 
If you are fortunate enough to have some of your paternal ancestors (father, grandfather, and great-grandfather) still living, ask them about relationships and tease out those less obvious relationships. Of course, better still remember to have them share stories about their own life. Friends were discussing how everyone’s memory of a particular event is different. Perhaps you are aware of a particular family story, ask other family members what they remember about it.
 
Hope you have fun looking into your paternal side! Happy Father’s Day!
 
Father's Day (United States) - Wikipedia
Father's Day - Date, Definition & History | HISTORY
​