Favorite Discovery

Week 7

This one took some time to think of as I have written about a lot of my favorites, but I kept thinking of perhaps then the one that was most unexpected, and filled a blank spot, and made me smile.

The back story is almost as important as the story on this one....
Aunt Maxie was my mother in law's aunt who was only a few years older than her, so they grew up

Aunt Maxie Sanders in her Red Line Uniform

more like cousins than aunt and niece.  Aunt Maxie was a character, she was the first woman to be an engineer/conductor on the "red line" trolley in LA California, she was married five times and she had a wicked sense of humor.  My mother in law Charline and Maxie both loved family history and genealogy, so later in life (both in their 40's and 50's) Charline's job allowed her to pay for Maxie's research in some cases, and contribute to it in others.  Remember, this is before the internet, this was writing letters and looking at census reports in person, leaving ads in the back of genealogy magazines and writing to county clerks and asking if so and so was born there.  Maxie put together an extensive history of the family she and Charline shared.  She also put together the family histories of the husbands with whom she had had children - and this is where my discovery starts...

Charline Herring Gates

Charline passed before Maxie but Maxie was eventually gone as well and I, as the other family history nut, was the recipient of 5 large Rubbermaid boxes of family group sheets, death certificates, newspaper articles etc.  I spent a whole winter digitizing over 5000 pieces of paper and putting it all in family binders.  I had one binder left over and that one was for her next-to-last husband Robert (Bob) Guinty's family.  I knew her daughter and had contacted her and she would be glad to have the information from her mom on her father's family and we arranged an exchange in the near future.  I wondered if perhaps I should go through and digitize this info as well just in case. (I am a big believer in Murphy's Law!) As I began the process I found the name Quint in the records and just for fun set that whole group of papers and notes to one side.  Quint was my maternal grandmother's maiden name and I thought I might find a couple of relatives. 

l-r Frederick, William, Henry Hermann

Imagine my surprise when I started going through this new Quint tree and found that Uncle Bob's grandfather on his mothers side was my 3rd great uncle on my mothers side!  In fact she had traced that Quint family all the way back to Germany, 3 generations farther than I had been able to using the internet!  I was blown away to say the least.  It is one of my most amazing "stumble upon" pieces of info to date!

I even had a picture of these brothers in my files - Frederick was the oldest, William is my 3x great grandfather and Henry Hermann was Uncle Bobs grandfather.

Still makes me smile, Aunt Maxie and Mom would have loved the story!