{"id":42357,"date":"2026-01-05T12:21:59","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/my-son-had-to-do-a-family-tree-for-a-school-project-i-went-on-a-genealogy-deep-dive-to-learn-about-a-side-of-the-family-i-never-knew-about\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T12:21:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:21:59","slug":"my-son-had-to-do-a-family-tree-for-a-school-project-i-went-on-a-genealogy-deep-dive-to-learn-about-a-side-of-the-family-i-never-knew-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/my-son-had-to-do-a-family-tree-for-a-school-project-i-went-on-a-genealogy-deep-dive-to-learn-about-a-side-of-the-family-i-never-knew-about\/","title":{"rendered":"My son had to do a family tree for a school project. I went on a genealogy deep dive to learn about a side of the family I never knew about."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6957d3fb832e0ef1ead711c2?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Isobella Jade (center) sits with her son (left) and daughter (right)\"\/><figcaption>Isobella Jade (center)<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Isobella Jade<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>I never knew much about my father&#039;s side of the family. <\/li>\n<li>This became a bit of an issue when my son had to work on a family tree for a school project. <\/li>\n<li>I used Ancestry.com to research our family history and have learned so much about our ancestors. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I recall feeling embarrassed when my son asked me about my father&#039;s side of the family for a social studies project when he was in 6th grade. I didn&#039;t know much about my dad&#039;s side of the family, besides my dad&#039;s father&#039;s first name, Frank.<\/p>\n<p>It felt wrong for my son to leave the column blank, and I also became curious. I suddenly wanted to learn more about my grandfather and father&#039;s side of the family.<\/p>\n<p>What made it complicated was that there was no one to ask.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>My dad&#039;s family history was complicated<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>When my Dad died in a fire in his home at age 63, there was nothing salvageable but a handful of items in his car. Without him, the lineage of his side of the family felt erased.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6957d8a2832e0ef1ead7123e?format=jpeg\" alt=\"The author&#039;s father shown at 6 months.\"\/><figcaption>The author&#039;s father shown at 6 months.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Isobella Jade<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The first time I saw my grandfather&#039;s face was in his obituary, a few years after my dad died. When I noticed the obituary did not include my dad&#039;s name, he reality of their estrangement hit. Although my dad had already died, I question what he would have thought if he saw his father&#039;s obituary, knowing his biological father did not recognize him at all. It made me sad, and I wondered if my father had remained a secret.<\/p>\n<p>Before he died, my dad had told me his mother gave birth to him when she was 19. He didn&#039;t say much about his father besides mentioning a brief visit with him when he was around 5. I didn&#039;t have a lot to go on. <\/p>\n<h2><strong>I turned to my computer for answers<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>To find some answers and fill out at least part of the family tree for my dad&#039;s side of the family, I realized I&#039;d have to fend for myself. I decided to use Ancestry.com to help fill in the gaps.<\/p>\n<p>First, I put my grandfather&#039;s name in Ancestry. I used his obituary as a starting point for his birth and death, his parents&#039; names, and his brother&#039;s name, then I searched for census records, birth and marriage certificates, military records, and more. I began slowly gathering documents from his life that could help me build a family tree for my father&#039;s side of the family. Soon, his profile showed leaf icons, which the site uses as &quot;hints&quot; for me to explore.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6957d70c64858d02d217a6eb?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Census records the author researched to find more clue about her family history.\"\/><figcaption>Census records the author researched to find more clue about her family history.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Isobella Jade<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2><strong>Digging deeper revealed more<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I started obsessing over clues about his life and upbringing. My search wasn&#039;t about reaching out to my relatives I don&#039;t know, it was purely for the creation of a family tree for my kids. I don&#039;t plan to surprise my relatives with an email of my findings, and wanting to one day meet. I do not plan to meet them. I&#039;m fine being a part of the lineage that is in the shadows or perhaps a part of a hushed secret, but I still want the family&#039;s branches for my tree.<\/p>\n<p>One day, when I logged into Ancestry.com, waiting for me was a portrait of my grandfather from his high school yearbook. It was like a gift. I studied his face, looking for any resemblance to my father; this was around the time he would meet my dad&#039;s mother. A couple of years later, my dad would be born.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6957d68c64858d02d217a6df?format=jpeg\" alt=\"The author&#039;s father, shown at age 9.\"\/><figcaption>The author&#039;s father, shown at age 9.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Isobella Jade<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Another gift I unearthed was my grandfather&#039;s selective service draft card from 1948. The word &#039;father&#039; is checked off. I&#039;m shocked to see this document from his life. It represents a moment in time when my grandfather and my father were together, even if only on this piece of paper, during the year my dad was born.<\/p>\n<p>I continued to do more research and discovered proof of a marriage and other children. Eventually, I discovered more relatives on my dad&#039;s side and discovered that many of them were named Frank or John.<\/p>\n<p>I&#039;ve learned, my grandfather Frank was a man of science, a doctor who was passionate about brain health.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6957d76b64858d02d217a6f3?format=jpeg\" alt=\"A city directory the author used to learn that someone in her family was a shoemaker.\"\/><figcaption>A city directory the author used to learn that someone in her family was a shoemaker.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Isobella Jade<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>My great-grandfather Frank, born in 1886, was a chief clerk at the railroad in his 20s, later, he was an office manager for an ice cream factory. My great-great-grandfather, Frank, born in 1857, was a cigar manufacturer.<\/p>\n<p>I feel oddly connected to the story of these people, even though I didn&#039;t even know they existed before my search began.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Now our family tree has more branches<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>After two years of research, I can now better answer my son&#039;s questions about our family&#039;s past, and we&#039;re ready for the next school assignment that may come our way. I&#039;m proud of myself for all I&#039;ve discovered so far and the efforts I&#039;ve made to build something meaningful from the shadows, and I think my father would be proud, too.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Isobella Jade (center) Courtesy of Isobella Jade I never knew much about my father&#039;s side of the family. This became a bit of an issue when my son had to work on a family tree for a school project. I used Ancestry.com to research our family history and have learned so much about our ancestors. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-42357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}