All right. So I know that many of you have been following my blog to read about my life and how I dealt with my epilepsy. I know that I have not had much to say lately (huh, go figure that one) but I do have a good excuse as to why. Since Nick and I split and divorced (don't worry, dear blog readers as that saga will come later) I had to find a little something to do and lose myself in when I am feeling down and out. I am a genealogist-aholic.
My mother and my Uncle Jamie have always been big into working on their family trees. They have tons of Rubbermaid totes full of pictures and documents of their family. So I decided that because there is not much known about my fathers families, particularly the Sterndales and Zarecki's that I should take a trip out to Lawrence and Methuen and see what I could find. I brought my Aunt Barb with me and we decided to start at Lawrence City Hall. It only cost us twenty dollars, but we were able to look through the birth, marriage and death records that they had as far back as the early 1800's. We were then able to ask to look at the original books to find more information about grandparents, great grandparents and great-great grandparents. It was wonderful to find out that my great-grandfather, Peter Zarecki had a sister named Terese that came over from Lithuania as well. We were able to see Peter and my great-grandmother Augustina's marriage documentation and the birth record for my grandfather, Peter Jr. We had a field day there!
We then meandered over to Methuen to see if we could find out about the infamous Richard Sterndale. He was my grandmother Elizabeth Lundgren's maternal grandfather. We knew that he had been married several times, but while we were there we discovered a fourth time! We were also able to find out when and where he had died and where he was buried. We got death certificates for Richard and for his second wife, Annie and then decided to do some grave hopping. We headed over to the cemeteries where my great-great grandparents are buried. We found John Peter Lundgren and Alida Carlson and two children who died in infancy. We went to see Peter, Augustina, Terese and my Great-Aunt Anna and her husband, Joe. We then went to Walnut Grove cemetery which is listed on Richard's death certificate. It was a smaller cemetery than the others we had been to, and there was no office. So we asked the ground caretakers where we could find information as to where people were buried there. They let us look through the original books in which who had which plot was documented in beautiful, flourishing handwriting. We found where his plot was, and the caretakers directed us there. We were both so giddy like little schoolgirls! As we were driving to the area where they supposedly were I squealed "Stop the car!" I hopped out as I saw the headstone for Richard's third wife, Ida Bottomley. She was buried there with her first husband. Five stones down from Ida was Richard. He is buried there with Annie, his second wife and the one he was married to the longest. They are there with their son, Herbert who had made the journey from England with them, but passed when he was very young. We were so excited to find that this man we had only heard about really and truly existed! But then we had a moment of silence for Richard, Annie, Herbert and the Sterndale family as we thought about the hardships that they had gone through in England and then while setting up their family here in America.
There are still Sterndale cousins of mine out there. Just finding them all is a wee bit tricky as the census records are not released until 72 years after they are taken to respect privacy. Ancestry is a wonderful puzzle, an addicting puzzle, but a fulfilling puzzle. The excitement of finding these records makes you feel as giddy as a little schoolgirl. The inner peace that you feel when you stand at a tombstone and recall what these people went through in order to set up a good home here in America for their family is serenity. I pray that my children will enjoy the work that I am putting into all of this so that they can understand our family history. And for my children, for their inner peace, I have started a family tree for them with their biological family. These are things that I hope that they will cherish, for a long, long time.
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