Those darned ancestors!

I've spent a fair amount of quality time today scrolling through the 1940 census that was just released, looking for my parents and grandparents and such. Found them all, too, plus a bunch more. It's just entertainment for me at the moment.

Last week I had lunch with a cousin on my father's side who I haven't seen for about 50 years! She was eleven then, I was 18.  She's run circles around me when it comes to the details of genealogy on these people, and she had some stories to tell. A second marriage for my grandfather (which I heard from another older relative a few years back, but had no details about), and a scandal all wrapped up in it. The woman, as far as we can tell, was someone who worked on the beauty parlor side of the barber shop. Susie doesn't know the exact details, but it seems that the woman called herself 'divorced' when she wasn't, and my grandfather had the marriage annulled when he found out. Or something like that.  My grandfather was listed on the census with my father, my aunt and her oldest daughter. No wife! Although, I found the supposed wife listed in town, still working in a beauty parlor.

Tomorrow, I plan to visit the county courthouse and go through the marriage books for the appropriate years and see if I can find a record of his second marriage. Not quite sure how to go about finding a record of any annulment, but we'll deal with that when we come to it.

Susie also heard from her mother (my father's sister) that our grandfather was in the KKK! Not shocking for the time, but shocking to me in that this is my PaPa we're talking about! He was the light of my young life, the kindest, sweetest, gentlest man a person could ever imagine. In the Klan????? Yep, I'm shocked.

I found my grandmother on my mother's side living in Cedartown as a lodger, along with her oldest daughter. The other kids, my mother included, lived with their dad in Esom Hill. I found all kinds of other folks that have to be relatives, even though I didn't recognize all their names offhand. My mom's family has been in Esom for a couple of hundred years, and since all the early families intermarried, all the offspring over the generations are related.

I also found the family I bought my house from, living in the house in 1940! That was kind of cool, for some odd reason. Continuity, I guess.

I could have found more, I'm sure, but the entertainment value has waned for now.