She was a beautiful, young Irish maid, working in a wealthy English household. Her employer’s oldest son fell in love with her. When he announced intentions to marry her, his parents said they would disown him. He married her anyway. Then, bride and groom ran away to live happily ever after. “Her name was Mary Cordial,” my maternal grandmother Marilyn Matilda Dietz told me, that distinct glimmer of pleasure in her eyes—the one she always had when she retold this story. “And you are her legacy.”

This blog is a resource for those who want to--have to--find out more about who they came from.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Kathleen's Genealogical Dictionary - Entry #2

GEDCOMrhea (noun): a form of genealogical venereal disease, obtained by mindlessly adopting information found in unsourced family trees online. Symptoms include parents being only six years older than their children, people being married to two people or more at the same time (unless, of course, they're living in Big Love, Utah), and ancestors showing up in one or more censuses after they're declared dead.

Used in a sentence: "GEDCOMrhea can be avoided by confirming vital statistics with official documentation."