“Remoted” – Workday 159 / Day 233 (Wednesday)

When work-work ended at 5:00, more work began when I signed up and then fell down the rabbit hole of Ancestry.com. For three hours I was glued to the desk and chair and screen.

The genealogical mission is to research my grandmother Ruth's (Mummu!) family, starting with her mother. Through a brief subscription to Newspapers.com a while ago, there is a file of newspaper clippings of marriage, birth, and death announcements along with the assorted news items about hospital stays, crime reports, and property taxes. Through the marriage notice, I have a full description of the brown velvet suit my grandmother was married in, as well as the "yellow organza gown with matching picture hat" she wore as matron of honor in her friend Verna's wedding. On the Apple desktop computer I haven’t even turned on in about 18 months, there are various census records, and a file folder lives in a box in the abyss of the spare room with handwritten notes from even earlier research attempts.

None of this previous work prepared me for the magic that is Ancestry.com. The leaves with hints! Somehow, my great grandparents are already filed on three family trees. I recognized the names of two cousins of my Mom with trees, but the third tree, from someone in Kentucky with a completely unrecognizable name is a surprise/mystery.

Ruth Maki in high school, 
 long before becoming
Mummu.

With all the handwritten records, I have seen so many versions of the family name I no longer know what the real name is anymore. Mummu’s family name as we have always known it is Maki, but in the various years of handwritten census records, it has been listed at times as Makin, Mackey and Mackie. Great-grandma’s name was Wilhelmina, but she was known by Minnie, which is spelled in some records as Minnie, Mina, Miina, and once even as Muna. At least the home address and all the children’s names (in various misspellings) are constant in the records. 

Speaking of the children, the great-uncles had formal names and nicknames. Niilo was always referred to by family as “Nibby.” Depending upon the source, the formal name of the great-uncle we always knew as “Cully” is either Carl, Charles, Carlo, or Kalle.

Sources I found earlier show Minnie’s family name as Ollila, but I keep finding records for Ollikkala. I thought my great grandparents were married in Finland, but there is a marriage record in New Hampshire that may or may not be theirs. And My grandmother’s high school photo popped up. Such an adventure!