10/25/2025
It took me more than 30 years to find where Sister Miriam Julia's convent & home was. I only knew her as Great Aunt Anna, and knew her name as a nun was based on her mother's name & the Mother Mary. I knew she was an older cousin to my grandmother, but not from which lineage. She died when i was about 6 or 7 years old.
Finally, after asking several cousins what they might remember and still coming up empty, this one news article popped up. In it, I found where she worked & her job title. From there it was a Google search for the school, which led to the church, which led to the convent... Which led to an email to the school, seeking information about her.
From the information so graciously provided by the church, I was given her maiden surname, her parents' names, where she lived, DOB, death date and a photo, and even where she is buried!
With her surname now known, I was able to conclusively prove her kinship to my Ggf with documented verification ... And discovered an amazing story of a young woman who lost her father & both of her older siblings, before she was an adult. She never married, but instead worked as a teacher and supported her mother until her mother passed, and then entered the convent, to continue her life's work as a spiritual teacher & mentor.
(She is still the kindest person I've known. I loved her deeply as a child, and always looked forward to her visits, when she blessed me with her nurturing attention & care).
Researching her life for so long, she was finally brought back into the family fold, given a place & the existence of her life -a lovely, gentle & compassionate leaf on a tree where once there was none!
All that, from the only single piece of evidence I was ever able to find, in over 30 years of searching!
There's so much more to genealogy than a successive patrilineal tree of names & dates. Discovering the trials & tribulations -the stories of the life experienced by an ancestor, that may enrich your own life, means so much more! But sometimes, it takes years of research & digging to reveal those stories.
Did you inherent some of their traits? Do you look like one of them? Or, conversely, might a whole can of worms -a previously unknown family secret of shame- be spilled into your lap, needing to be understood & examined more deeply? (This does happen, more often than you might think!)
Are you ready to discover their stories, all held within you?
I welcome your stories of an ancestor you have strong feelings about -good or bad. What might you have always wanted to know about them? Why? Would knowing more about them give you a greater understanding of yourself? How?
Feel free to comment below, or tell me in a DM here if you want your stories kept private (member posting possible at a later time), or use the contact link on my webpage (no purchase of anything required) www.DiscoverTheStoryOfYou.com
And for the new followers here? A warm welcome!
