The "Which Relative Gave you Family Information" Challenge

Alice Wilson Rohrer

1886-1978

Center

The challenge states:   Was there a relative that was a big help in giving you family information?  Who and how was he/she helpful? and can be found HERE along with comments and the links to the posts of others who participated in the challenge.  

Alice Rohrer was the woman I knew as my great grandmother.    I featured her during March when I was honoring women in my family history for women's history month.  That post can be found HERE.   The woman who gave birth to my grandfather was dead two weeks after he was born.  Four and a half years after that my great grandfather married the person I grew up calling "Grandma Al".   I can't say that she furnished me with organized family history but she was quick to share fun stories.  She explained a great deal about how life was on the farm in the early 1900s and she also shared a morsel or two of family gossip here and there.  One of the most helpful things she did was keep a scrap book where she pasted obituaries from people she knew, many of who were connected to the family.   She didn't include sources of the papers they were in or dates of when the obituaries were published but the scrap book is still a treasure trove of family connections.  

Other people who provided family information to me were my mother,  who I featured last March in my blog also and it can be found HERE along with my explanation of how she got me started, which I posted during another week's challenge which can be found HERE.  And my uncle who had collected a great deal of information on the Rohrer line.  Yet undoubtably,  even though they don't count as relatives,  the folks that really helped me the gather the most information were fellow genealogists and family history buffs.   Since most of my lines are from the Pennsylvania Dutch heritage many of the helpful people I connected with were  from the old Brethren Mailing List on Rootsweb which can be found HERE.   The other message boards and mailing lists  at Rootsweb also had many helpful people which with  I corresponded and shared information.   I miss the days when Rootsweb was in its heyday but I think Facebook has replaced Rootsweb in many ways.   I also need to mention the many librarians and historical society curators that were quick to offer their assistance.     But I digress from the original question.  I pick Alice Rohrer as being a relative that was a big help in giving me family information.