I started researching my family history about 2 years ago. Why am I doing this? Curiosity mainly. Being a Navy brat all my life, we never
stayed in one place longer than a few years, and then it was off to my dad’s next
duty station. So I was never around my extended
family a lot. Thus, I didn’t know much
about them.
Then a new show aired that you may have heard of…”Who Do You Think You
Are?” I never missed an episode. Soon I was asking myself some of the same
questions, and wondering why I never inquired about my family history with my
parents before. Now after doing research
for a few years, I wish I had, especially with my grandparents. Now they aren’t with us any longer, and that
easy to get information is lost. Plus, I
used to live on the East Coast where the bulk of my immediate family lives, and
as it turns out, so did my ancestors…mainly Virginia, Washington, DC,
Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont.
It sure would have been a lot easier.
But what can you do. Hindsight is
always 20/20.
The first thing I did was hop onto the
internet and started typing in the search box to see what came up.
I checked out a few places, but I wasn’t really getting the information
I wanted or needed. So I went to
Ancestry.com and joined. Well that
changed everything, and they have been a wealth of information. Then I went to FamilySearch.org, and boy, oh
boy. A whole lot of information there
too. My parents have been a lot of help
too, especially my mom.
My dad’s family is deeply ingrained in Virginia and Washington, DC, and
my mom’s family is in the Northeast (Connecticut, Maine, etc) and on Prince
Edward Island in Canada. All were
immigrants that came from England, Germany, Switzerland, and Scotland. There may be some Irish in there also.
I started with my dad’s line first since I share the same last name,
and I am the last in the line. There are
no more males, in my line, to carry on the Lusby name.
My sister is married,and her daughter carries her father’s name. I went to a Lusby family reunion
back in 1992/1993 in Virginia with my parents.
My great-aunt Edie (who’s my paternal grandfather’s sister), had a lot
of the Lusby family history done, so my
mom gave me what she had, and I went to town.
In fact, I’m still verifying and documenting everything Aunt Edie recorded. She had only gone back as far as
my 2x great grandfather who was born about 1833 and died in 1906. She had very little information on his father,
my 3x great grandfather, and I haven’t had much luck either.
After getting frustrated and tired of continuously banging my head
against the wall for no good reason, I moved on to my mom’s line. That was much easier as she had a family tree
for her paternal side that was done by a Swiss genealogist back in the early
1900’s, and she also had a very extensive tree for her maternal side. But I still wanted to verify and document everything.
That is the most important thing I discovered. I’ve gone down many false trails excitedly,
only to discover I had to make a U-turn and go back and start again. This has happened many times. I feel like a detective trying to solve a
great mystery. And who doesn’t love a
great mystery?
So in the beginning, my aim was to trace the origins of the following ancestors: Lusby and Sporie. On the Lusby side, I’ve been led to the Henning’s
and the Armistead’s. On the Sporie side,
I’ve been led to the Tanton’s and the Stavert’s. Easy right?
Six lines…how hard can that be?
Well, I’ve also discovered some other lines, as I never thought of the
women that the men had married, and that gives me even more to research. It’s a good think that I like researching.
I can’t tell you how many time I’ve told myself that I’ll work on “The
Tree” for an hour or two, then 4 or 5 hours later, there I am…still plugging
away. But at least it’s keeping me out
of trouble. Since I love a good mystery, I am really enjoying putting the pieces of
my family’s history together. The
journey has been exciting and educational so far, and I’m really looking forward
to learning more about the people I’m descended from. Who knows what else is out there waiting to
be discovered.
Currently, I am searching the following families:
- Lusby (Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland)
- Hennings (New York, Washington DC, Germany)
- Armistead (Washington DC England)
- Sporie (New York, Connecticut, Maine, Germany)
- Tanton (Maine, Prince Edward Island (Canada), England)
- Stavert (Prince Edward Island, Scotland)
Some of the newer lines that I’ve recently discovered and am excited to learn more about include Raitz, Dameron, Douglas,Grundisch, Sharp, and
Linkletter.
I hope that with this blog, I can connect with other people and
relatives (known and unknown), and continue filling in all the blank spaces and
hear stories and see/share photographs. If you are reading this and are related to me (or think you may be
related), please contact me.
I hope that you find the information that I have shared and will
continue to share in the future about my ancestors is entertaining and
information.
Talk to you later.
Betsy
