Roberts Roots & Branches

Here is a fun little treasure I found while trying to find a photograph. It is a business card of my uncle Eugene Roberts. The card sat on my desk for several days before I flipped it over and read the back. Now, I can't quit laughing. Enjoy!

Everyone I have spoken to that knew her said the same three things: she was so kind she was so nice she was so sweet Different people, different conversations, different times and the constant is the same; their description of her!

  I am working on a new story. I knew Margaret Roberts(2) lived a long life (87 years) but as I am writing about her birthday celebrations here is what my research came up with: Margaret lived 30 years longer than the average person did the year she died, and she lived double what the life expectancy was the year she was born. Today’s average life expectancy age is 78.81 years, so Margaret even beat the 2020 life expectancy age by 8 years!

  "Don't let your ancestors OR their stories be reduced to just footnotes! They deserve more than that!" Lisa Alzo "You can't edit a blank page!" Lisa Alzo Great online class this morning entitled, "Show, Don't Tell: Creative Nonfiction Writing for Genealogist" by Lisa A. Alzo, M.F.A. Excellent and abundant information! The class was offered by ISBGFH.

  My goal for 2021: Fill this notebook with interviews from the Roberts family. Writing has shown me I can piece our ancestors lives together with sources and documents, but histories and interviews are the yarn that stich the story together and make it interesting and personable. So, I may be calling YOU! It will be fun!!!!

 Oh my! Busy, busy, busy! You think you have researched, but let me tell you, you have not researched until you try to write what you have researched! I have been learning so much!  Those documents, certificates, histories, and photographs hold much more information than initially meets the eye. It is all like a very big puzzle and until you begin to put the pieces together you cannot get an accurate picture. Creating a timeline helps as I try to piece a person's life together one document, source, and memory at a time. Big shout out to everyone who has replied to my text messages and phone calls with random questions! Thank you!

Here is my "cemetery kit" I put together last fall. Everything is ready to go for this year when it warms up. I do need to find some small grass clippers that I could use to trim around the stones.

  "A way of looking at the importance of being educated: Every human being is born into the middle of a larger story. If we don't learn about the past, we won't know what happened before we got here and we will have greater difficulty making sense of what is happening now. It is like starting a book in the middle. It puts us at a disadvantage." --Phyllis Theroux "The Journal Keeper"

  Last night I had a nagging feeling to request a death certificate for a woman I mentioned in one of my stories. The story is not about her, but her husband. I have all the information I needed, but the feeling kept nagging at me. This morning I received her death certificate from the generous Wyoming Archives and realize it was related to childbirth. That unfortunately leads to locating another death certificate and another dimension is added to what I thought was a completed story! I jumped on FamilySearch and the baby is not listed. Hoping the generous Wyoming State Archives will have the baby's death certificate for me. Follow those feelings when researching.