Crista Cowan: 0:01

Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future. I'm aKrista Cowan, known online as the Barefoot Genealogist. I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything. Can change everything

Crista Cowan: 0:23

Every once in a while, as I am sitting around the office with my colleagues, we have to remark on what a weird job we have. Now. It's not weird in the sense that we have to do anything uncomfortable or icky. We just get to do really cool things that sometimes seem a little surreal in the moment. That was certainly the case in 2018, as myself and some of my colleagues headed down to Los Angeles for the weekend of the Emmy Awards. Now, you may not know this, but during the Emmy Awards, they often host around Los Angeles what are called gift lounges. It used to be back in the day that when a presenter or an award winner walked off the stage at one of those award shows that they would get swag. They would walk through backstage and collect things that people had donated, because they wanted a celebrity to be seen walking out of that award ceremony holding their particular merchandise. Well, in the world of social media, influencers and collabs, gift lounges have expanded to be something altogether of an event in and of themselves. So now, for the two days leading up to most award shows the Emmys, the Golden Globes, the People's Choice Awards there are gift lounges in hotels around the city.

Crista Cowan: 1:51

In 2018, the weekend of the Emmy Awards, HBO hosted the luxury lounge sponsored by Ancestry, and Ancestry was allowed to set up an entire suite in the hotel. We decked it out with a big fake tree in the middle. We had DNA kits available for the celebrities as they came through, and then and this is a little unusual we had computers set up around the perimeter of the room and offered them the opportunity to sit with us and start building out their family tree if they wanted to do that. Now, that's a little bit unusual, because the whole purpose of gift lounges is that these celebrities schedule about two hours with a handler to walk through the five or eight or ten suites in the hotel that have been designated. As part of this experience, there's usually two or three vendors and a local charity in each of the suites. They get their merchandise, they hand it to their handler, who puts it in a giant duffel bag. They often will take a picture with a step and repeat in order to have their face in some way associated with the brand, and that's their payment for getting the free stuff. Well, Ancestry had an entire suite to ourselves and we weren't asking them just to walk through, grab some swag and leave after a photo op. We wanted them to have a family history experience, because we weren't just hoping to see people photographed with an Ancestry DNA kit. We want people always talking about their family stories, so asking for them to spend 10 or 15 or 20 minutes with myself or one of the other genealogists from Ancestry was kind of an ask, but the HBO folks who were producing the event were more than willing to let us do this. Now, it's easy to get starstruck at some of these events.

Crista Cowan: 3:54

I remember during that particular event, Dulé Hill and his fiance were there. At one point, Allison Janney from West Wing came in and the two of them had a little mini reunion in the middle of the room. And then one of my colleagues was able to find some really interesting things for Dulé as she built his family tree from Jamaica. At one point I was sitting with Cheryl Hines and her daughter. You may remember Cheryl from Curb your Enthusiasm. She had brought her teenage daughter with her, which I thought was kind of cool, and they sat and spent probably 15 or 20 minutes with me as we explored Cheryl's family tree, and to watch this mother-daughter have this experience together was exactly what I hope for. Experiences like that it's exactly what I hope, by putting out these stories on this podcast, is that families will have family storytelling experiences together.

Crista Cowan: 4:57

Shortly after I was done working with Cheryl that day, the HBO cast of Ballers came rolling into the room. Now, you may not remember or know about this television show. It was about a bunch of football players. The head of that cast was the Rock. Sad to say, he was not there. However, many of the young men that played the football players on the show came into the room and one of them came over to me just as I had finished up with Cheryl and he asked what we're doing and I said well, we're helping you build a family tree if you'd like to do that, and he said, yeah, of course. So he sat down on one of the tall stools in front of one of the computers. And you have to imagine now he's this over six foot tall, kind of broad shouldered black man from the South, he's got just a smidge of an accent, and we are in a hotel suite, but there's people everywhere, there are computers lined up against the wall, and so I'm kind of tucked in a corner a little bit, standing next to him leaning up against a wall, and I've got the computer keyboard in front of me because I'm driving the computer.

Crista Cowan: 6:12

As I start asking him questions what's your name? I type it in. Tell me your birth date and place. He freely gives me this information. I said okay, tell me about your dad. So we're building out his family tree. Just the same way everyone starts building a family tree. He gives me his dad's name and birth date. Tell me about your mom. He gives me her name and birth date. I said okay, tell me about your grandpa. Your dad's dad gives me his name and birth date. Then I get to grandma. I said tell me about your grandma.

Crista Cowan: 6:45

And this kid pauses. And one of the things that I have learned as someone who dives headfirst into family trees looking for stories is that almost always there is a story in the pause, and so I looked at him and I said what's going on? I said do you know who your grandma is? Now, that was a fairly normal question, because one of the things that we've learned is that more than half of Americans cannot name all four of their grandparents. Usually it's a grandfather, but sometimes it's a grandmother, particularly if they're trying to remember her maiden name, which is how you enter women into family trees.

Crista Cowan: 7:29

He paused and I said do you know your grandma? And he said I just need to know which one. Again, there's a story there. I said tell me about that. And he said well, my grandma died when my dad was born. He is the youngest of 10 children and she died in childbirth with him, and my grandpa very quickly remarried because he had 10 children and a newborn, and so the grandma that raised my dad, the grandma that I knew, is the only grandma. I know her name. And I said okay, the great thing about family trees is that you can enter all of the permutations of families that exist. If you've got two parents or four parents, or six parents, you can enter all the parents. If you have had several spouses, if you've got children and stepchildren, if your siblings have half siblings on their other side of their family, like you can. Like, all of the various messiness of family can be represented in the family tree, that's not a problem. And so I said Okay, let's put, let's put grandma in the tree.

Crista Cowan: 8:38

And so we put his grandma in the tree, and then, before we could move on to his mom's parents, he said but what about my other grandma? And I said well, let's put her in. Do you know her name? And he said no, I don't. I said do you know anybody that would know her name? And he said oh yeah, hold on, just a second. Whips out his phone, makes a phone call.

Crista Cowan: 9:01

Now again, we're in a crowded room. I am wedged in between this little table with this computer on it and him sitting on this tall stool and a wall. I have nowhere to escape, and so I am privy to this entire phone conversation as it unfolds, even though it was not on speakerphone. And he says hey, pop, I'm here at the HBO lounge with some people from Ancestry and we're building my family tree and I need to know the name of your mom. No, your other mom, yeah, her. And he repeats the name that his dad says and I type it into the family tree.

Crista Cowan: 9:37

And then I pointed at the birth date field, trying to indicate that I wanted him to ask his dad more questions while he had him on the phone. And really that's the like when you start a family tree, you start with what you know. But what he was experiencing is what a lot of us experience, which is talk to your family, find out what they know. So I point to this birth date field and he's like yeah, pop, do you know? Do you know when she was born? Oh, no, okay. So I point to the death date field and he says she died the day you were born, right, pop, yeah, okay. So I type in his father's birth date as her death date and the same place and he says yeah, okay, pop, thanks, yeah, I will, okay, okay, bye. And he hangs up the phone. And he hangs up the phone and no sooner do I hit save on entering that deceased grandmother into his family tree. Then up pops a little leaf hint.

Crista Cowan: 10:44

Now on Ancestry, those leaf hints indicate that whatever you've just entered into your family tree, Ancestry's algorithms have already gone to work. Looking to see if we can find any records that match that information. It doesn't always mean it's the same person. Sometimes it could be a person with the same name, born in the same time, living in the same place, but often it is for your person. And, sure enough, this little leaf hint that popped up was a death certificate for his grandmother in South Carolina.

Crista Cowan: 11:08

And as I open up the copy of this death certificate, this kid's face just I don't know whether it fell or lit up. There's some combination of those two things that moment where you're kind of stunned but super interested, where you're a little bit taken aback but also you're so excited that you just found a piece of information. It's an experience that we have often in family history and I watched all of those emotions race across his face as I enlarged this death certificate and I read her name out loud, which included her middle name that he had not known, which included or verified her maiden name that his father had just given him Under the cause of death. On that death certificate it said complications due to childbirth, which again he knew. But to see it in writing, to see that physical representation of that is, there's something about that experience.

Crista Cowan: 12:08

Now, the really great thing about that particular record is that on the left hand side it listed the names of her parents, both her father and her mother, with her mother's maiden name and where both of her parents had been born. And as I looked at the informant on that death certificate it was his grandfather. So we had some confidence that he knew who his in-laws were. We attached that record to her in the tree. We added that and this kid got kind of teary a little bit and he goes what else can we find? Is there more? He was hooked from that moment from seeing that record. So of course we looked at grandma's parents that we now had names for and I said, yeah, let's chase this, we'll do this for as long as you want. And I was able to, again, through a leaf hint on ancestry, pull up a US federal census record Now here in the United States. That US federal census is gold for family history. It provides a really great framework for chasing families through decade by decade as you work your way back in time.

Crista Cowan: 13:16

And so as we pulled up this census record, there was his grandmother listed as a teenager with her parents in their household and she had six siblings listed on that census and I pointed at that and some of those siblings were younger siblings and I said do you know any of these people? And he said no, no, why would I kind of? And I said they're your dad's aunts and uncles. And he went whoa my dad's aunts and uncles.

Crista Cowan: 13:47

It was just such a disconnect in the family because of the death of that grandmother. But you know and you think about grandpa with 10 children, with an infant, and marrying a new wife to try to keep these kids together, to try to keep the family going, and what that must have been like and the time that they didn't have to nurture relationships with that other side of the family. And so, for reasons that happen, their family drifted apart and he now sat here not even recognizing the names of any of these aunts or uncles. So I said let's look some of them up. So we started looking up each of those aunts and uncles in other records and one by one we were finding obituaries and Social Security death indexes and death records, and one by one we were running out of aunts and uncles until we got to the youngest one and couldn't find a death record for her, did find a public records index for her that indicated that she might still be alive, and so I gave him that information and I said here you go, your dad has an aunt that may still be alive and if he or you are willing to contact her, she may have stories or information about her older sister, your grandma, that nobody else in the family has ever shared with you. And he hugged me and was like giddy, I mean like he was overjoyed but also just kind of stunned, and he took his you know, got his DNA kit and took his picture and walked out of the suite.

Crista Cowan: 15:32

Now, because this HBO Gift Lounge was sponsored by Ancestry, not only did we get a whole suite to ourselves, but we were the first stop on that gift lounge experience for everyone, and that experience took between, oh, an hour and a half to two hours for these celebrities to go through that experience suite by suite, and the way that it was paved out. They would then leave the hotel as soon as they were done. And I know it takes about an hour and a half to two hours, because about two hours later, as I had been working with other people, I was talking to someone else in the gift lounge. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this kid walk back in the room.

Crista Cowan: 16:14

This kid, this 30-year-old kid, and he waited very patiently for me to finish the conversation I was in and then he came over and he said I need to talk to you. And I said yeah for sure. What can I do for you? And he said I need to know how this happens. And he was kind of mad and I was a little taken aback and I said what? And he said how is it that I am 30 years old and today is the first day I have ever heard my grandmother's name? How does that happen? And then he just started crying. And then, of course, I started crying, because nobody weeps alone in my presence, and I put my hand on his arm and I just said think about your grandpa, think about losing his wife and having a newborn and all those other kids to take care of, all those mouths to feed and needing to just survive and get on with life.

Crista Cowan: 17:16

I said you know, people make choices in the moment based on their circumstances and I suspect he probably did the best he could. And he said, ok, like I guess he goes. I just, I just don't know how that happens. I just he's like why would nobody ever even talk about her? And I said, well, your dad knew her name? And he said, yeah, I guess, but but he probably doesn't know much more than that. He didn't know her, didn't know her birthday, and as he sat there, stood there processing that it was interesting to just be in that space with him and watch him kind of wrestle with that Before he left.

Crista Cowan: 17:57

He said you know, I need to tell you something else. He said when you asked me my grandma's name and I didn't know it, and then you said who would know that? He said I didn't even hesitate, I just picked up the phone and I called my dad. What you don't know, he said, is that about six months ago my dad and I had a huge falling out. It was a big fight. It's a fight we've had repeatedly, but this was kind of the end of it and we haven't spoken in six months. But when you asked me that question, I didn't hesitate, I just picked up the phone and I called him and he said the last thing my dad said to me before I hung up was son, if you find anything out, will you please call me back? And he said I'm so excited to just go out to the car. He said I probably won't even make it home to call my dad and tell him what we found. And it was such a beautiful moment for me to be witness to of not just the power of family history to reconnect us with the ancestors or, in this case, the grandma, to heal things and give us reasons to connect and stories to share and a shared heritage that we can have connection around. I think that's such an important thing that is often so underestimated in the pursuit of family history or building a family tree, and so to watch it happen in real time in that moment was a really beautiful thing.

Crista Cowan: 19:33

Now, about six months after this event, I had the opportunity to share this story because it was so impactful for me and I had recorded it in a YouTube video as part of a longer series. But I thought I wonder if this kid even remembers. I wonder if there's a rest of the story. I don't even know if I can get a hold of him again. He's a TV star, right, and I had told the story just as anonymized as I just told it to you, so I hadn't violated his privacy in any way.

Crista Cowan: 20:10

But I thought I'm going to see if I can get a hold of him and just share a link to this clip of the video where I tell the story, because I just want to express to him again how grateful I am to have been a witness to that experience and to see if there was any more that he had discovered out discovered to see if he had connected to the aunt, and so I just sent him a DM on Instagram thinking there's no way he's actually going to get this or respond. But exactly 12 minutes later and I know it was 12 minutes because that's how long the video clip was he responded back and he said that was beautiful. Thank you for sharing my story. If you'd like to know the rest of the story, here it is. This was last week and he sent me a picture, and it was a picture of him and his pops courtside at a Lakers game.

Crista Cowan: 21:05

And again I was reminded of the power that family history has to connect us with the people in our lives today, the fact that this experience had given him and his father an opportunity to talk, to talk about something other than what they had been fighting about and to kind of forge this new tenuous relationship. I think is a really beautiful thing, and so, for me and for you, what I hope is that, whether it's Cheryl Hines right exploring her family tree with her teenage daughter, or whether it's this young man wanting to know his grandmother and trying to reconnect with his father over that experience, whether it's me and my dad every Sunday night, whatever that looks like for you and your family, I hope that you will not make family history an isolated, solitary experience, but that you'll find ways to talk to your family, to ask them their stories, to share the stories that you're discovering and maybe, once in a while, to go on that journey of discovery together.