Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Which Relative Gave You Family Information?

Jacquie Shattner is again the inspiration for the challenge in this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun from Randy Seaver.

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible music, please!):

1) Was there a relative that was a big help in giving you family information?  Who and how was he/she helpful?

2)  Share your response in a comment on this blog post, in your own blog post (and provide a link in a comment on this post), or on Facebook or Google+.

This is one of those times when I knew immediately what my answer was to the week's challenge.  I had different helpful people for different sides of my family, however.

On my mother's side, she and my grandmother were the people who gave me the most help with family information.  I have written previously about hearing all kinds of family stories from them while I was growing up.  My mother was close to her family, and keeping up with how everyone was doing was normal.  She was also helpful with information for my father's family, often remembering more than he did.  As a little girl I already knew many names, dates, and places associated with my family.  When I was asked to create a family tree tracing my family back four generations as a junior high school assignment, I was well prepared.

In addition to my mother, the other person who helped a lot with information for my father's family was my grandfather's youngest sister, Betty.  I first spoke with her in 2000, which is when I learned she was still living.  She broke through my brick wall concerning my great-great-grandmother "Kate Moore" by letting me know that Moore was her second husband, not her maiden name, which was how it had been presented to me all those years ago when I had started my research.  Once I knew that, I was able to find records on Kate (born Catherine Fox Owen) and figure out who her parents were.  Aunt Betty also told me about my great-grandfather Elmer's half-brother from that second husband, and I did a lot of research on him.  (It isn't Aunt Betty's fault that I discovered my grandfather wasn't Elmer's biological son, so all that research was on my adoptive family.)  Without Aunt Betty I might still be stuck looking for a Kate Moore who married a Sellers.