"Uncle Bob"

L-R: "Uncle Bob" with brothers George (my great gpa), Francis and Joe circa 1924

 When my dad died in January 2011, I inherited several boxes of family history. My grandpa worked for years to assemble our family genealogy going back to our family's arrival in the New World. My family is listed as one of the 13 pioneering families of Missouri. I am thankful that my grandpa never lived to see the years of ancestry.com after all of the work he put into assembling this information. That said, I am very happy that I can use these web resources to connect the dots. It's amazing how easy it it to gather information about your family members these days, be it current or past.

 A few weeks back, I uncovered on of these heritage boxes and started to thumb through it. I've always been interested in genealogy and it was incredible to see yearbooks from 1925, original tin types, themes written by my grandpa in college and even songs he copyrighted (he was a bit of a lounge singer). I discovered some things I had never known about my family. My great grandmother was a corsetier (lingerie sales). My great grandfather sold arcade games and vending machines. We were (and are) a working class folk. Among these items and historical documents, was an envelope of photos labeled "unknown" by my father. They looked just like the images we all run across in antique stores and thrift shops. By being unknown, the photos lose their meaning to a person, a family, and so children or grandchildren discard them. Not wanting this to become the fate of this envelope of photos, I decided to reach out to some long lost family members to help.

 "Uncle Bob" is really my great, great uncle Bob. He is my great grandfather's brother and was only 6 years older than my grandpa, which is how it's possible that I found him still living in Illinois. I have never met "Uncle Bob" but he has a lot of our family heirlooms going back further than I have. After reaching out, Bob graciously offered to host me if I came out to Elgin. He has 3 children who also live in the area that I will get to meet. Their hospitality combined with a fare sale from Southwest airlines...and I have a ticket to Illinois for early March. I am hopeful that he can help me name the unknown people in my collection of photos and pass on knowledge that no website can give me. I've heard he has a laugh a lot like my dad's.