Friday, October 14, 2011

October is National Family History and Fire Prevention Month

October is National Family History and Fire Prevention month, two themes that run through my historical fiction book, “The Memory Quilt.” The book follows the experiences of a 14-year-old girl on the day of the Cloquet/Moose Lake fire, October 12, 1918.
The story is loosely based on my maternal grandmother’s family and their experiences during the fire. The family of seven survived by lying in the bottom of a shallow gravel pit they had dug to make the foundation of their new barn, while covering themselves with wet blankets and rugs.
Doing the research for “The Memory Quilt” is what first got me interested in family history research. There was so much I didn’t know about the fire or my dad’s family history when I started. Once you begin looking, it gets in your blood and you want to find out more and more.
What will it take to get you interested in your family’s history?  For those of you who find research tedious and time-consuming and don’t want to spend the money to buy a subscription to Ancestry.com or one of the other pay-subscription databases, I will be happy to do the document searches for you:
Census records
 
  Birth records
 
Death certificates
 
Obits
 
Grave site photos
 
Ship passenger lists
 
Marriage records
 
Declarations of Intent/Naturalization records
Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.
For more information on my Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com
and click on Family History Research.