Aimee Cross: 0:00

You know we're talking about the gold rush. We're talking about working for a company that was so well-known and did amazing, beautiful work, and I think for them he would have been a goldmine find to have somebody that grew up in the industry.

Crista Cowan: 0:15

Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future. I'm Crista 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. I was at RootsTech a few months ago and a dear friend of mine, Aimee Cross, was in attendance. Aimee doesn't doesn't live here in Utah, but I knew I wanted to get her into the studio and have a conversation with her about her family stories, and so, for those of you watching on YouTube, you're going to notice that the studio wasn't even fully ready yet, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to have this conversation.

Crista Cowan: 1:05

Aimee is a professional genealogist. She lives in Southern California and she is as passionate about family history as I am and is, in her own way, doing what she can to educate about family history as well. If you want to learn more about her, find her YouTube videos, consult with her. You can find out more about her at AncestryAimee. com. Now I need to tell you how to Aimee it's it's A-I-M-E-E, and the reason that's important. You'll understand as she and I talk a little bit about her French ancestry and the story of her grandmother. Enjoy my conversation Aimee Cross Cross. Well, thank you so much for being here. You know I always love conversations with you, but this is the first time you've been on my show.

Aimee Cross: 1:58

I know and thank you for inviting me.

Crista Cowan: 1:59

I love your show, I love these stories and hearing people's stories.

Aimee Cross: 2:03

It's such a wonderful thing.

Crista Cowan: 2:04

Well, I'm excited to hear the story that you brought to share with us today, but before we dive into that, I would love to just hear a little bit about how you got into family history.

Aimee Cross: 2:13

You know it was my grandmas. They got me involved in family history. They both, in different ways, were really into discovering their ancestors and learning more about their family. And you know what, as a really little kid, do? You know, when you were a little kid and you'd go into an old folks home which is what they called it then that's probably not a politically correct word anymore, but anyway and I would go in and so many people would be afraid they would get kind of creeped out. You know, but when you're a little kid and the older people would reach out to you because they loved seeing little kids and the older people would reach out to you because they loved seeing little kids, I loved it. I loved to hear their stories. It was never something that I was bothered by, I just always loved to hear the older people in my family hear their stories. So that's why I love what you're doing.

Crista Cowan: 2:56

Do you have like? Do you remember, like some of the early stories your grandma shared with you?

Aimee Cross: 3:02

Oh yeah, I mean, as a matter of fact, the one that I brought is one of my grandma's and I wish, like everybody else, that I had written more of them down or recorded them before they left this earth, and now I'm trying to recreate some of them and find out the details. That would have been just a question. So get your information while you have the chance like everybody says. But my grandma was really proud of her French heritage, and that's what this story is about. Before we dive into that like.

Crista Cowan: 3:29

So at what point did you go from just being a kid who loved hearing grandma's stories to being a genealogist?

Aimee Cross: 3:37

It really is.

Aimee Cross: 3:38

Actually, probably when I was a teenager I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and learned about why in that church, discovering your family is so important, and that's probably when I really started to be more of a genealogist, you know, and like really work on building my family tree and learning that I mean, that was 40, over 40 years ago, but I just really loved that discovering and I love being the detective.

Aimee Cross: 4:09

It's really exciting and adventurous to me. I love solving the mysteries and finding out, you know, and those kinds of things I thought were a lot of fun. But when I had my kids and I was busy being mom, there were times I did genealogy pretty much every year, but some years it was like for a week I kind of really dove in and had fun with it and then I was back into mom gear. So over those years there were times when I did a ton and then there were times when I really didn't. But over the last like 15 years I've really really enjoyed doing it for myself and then helping others when I was working professionally when I was working professionally.

Crista Cowan: 4:46

What is it that like, if there's something about the hunt when you dive in, whether it was for that week when you were a young mom or even now, like, is there like a particular record type or a particular like research methodology that you just really dig?

Aimee Cross: 4:58

Research methodologies have changed over the years as I've increased my skills and my knowledge. I'm much better than I was when I started. But there are two record groups. I was actually talking. I was doing a presentation yesterday to a group of people. Deeds, I think, are one of the most overlooked records they can be, especially when you're doing early American research. People completely underestimate the value of deeds and I even like to plot them out on a map and see, like where people lived and things like that. But the other record group is newspapers, because they tell you the story. When you don't know more about an individual, a newspaper can really help you learn more about that person and the life that they lived and how they felt about things or what they were involved in. So those are probably my two favorite record groups I love that so nerdy it is, we're nerds.

Aimee Cross: 5:50

And I accept it.

Crista Cowan: 5:52

It's like who. I am Right there with you and it's so funny because I think there's probably a lot of people who listen to the podcast who are not genealogists. They just love the stories. But putting the puzzle together is what makes the story come to life and gives it form and color and vibrancy that allows it to kind of continue to live in our imaginations and, through us, into our families. Okay, well, let's dive into the story, because I'm so excited to hear it. I've heard little bits and pieces from you. We were talking about it when we went together to dinner one night.

Aimee Cross: 6:28

Okay, so it actually starts earlier. I want to talk about my second great-grandmother. She's really the story. Is this mom's side or dad's side? This is dad's side and this is my dad's mom, my grandma Georgette, and she was named after her father, george, but her mother was named Ama and my grandmother's sister was Amy, and that's who I'm named after spelled A-I-M-E-E, which is kind of a French spelling. So there's that tie for me.

Aimee Cross: 6:56

But when I was a little girl my grandfather died when I was really young, like four or five, and when I was like eight or 10 or for a long time, I would go and visit my grandmother and she had kind of like the Isle of Lucy. She had the two twin beds with the night not at the nightstand but the headboard, but it was like a shelf unit type thing, and on the shelf unit were two lamps and they were statues and one is a little girl that's holding wheat and they're the white, and then there's a boy with a lamb over his shoulder and she turned them into lamps and they were the lamps over both beds and so when I would go visit her as a little girl I would get to sleep in her room with her, which I just thought that was so fun, to really have that time with grandma, you know, and to just be her bunkmate. But I always thought the lamps were so beautiful. Well, the lamps got knocked over when she was in a retirement home by somebody cleaning and she knew how much I loved them.

Aimee Cross: 7:51

She spent a boatload of money restoring those lamps so she could give them to me, and so they're in my office and I love those lamps. So she could give them to me, and so they're in my office and I love those lamps. Well, those lamps actually came, and I'm not positive of the date, but my grandmother's family went back to France, which is where they were from, for the World's Fair I think it was 1900. And that's where those lamps are from.

Aimee Cross: 8:13

They brought them back and so she would talk a lot about this French side of her family and that's what kind of got me interested in it when she'd talk about them going back and I have some pictures of the family visiting the extended family in France and that's a lot of fun. But her grandmother so my grandmother's grandmother, my second great-grandma, her husband, came over to America. You know this was gold was discovered, you know, in California in I think it was 1948. That was the time of the French Revolutionary War. France was not such a great place at that time either, california, and because of a lot of record loss there, I don't have the passenger list other than a newspaper article that said that somebody by the name of Dumont arrived in like 52. So anyway, he came to California and in 1860, he's enumerated in the gold rush country and he's listed as a miner.

Aimee Cross: 9:11

One of the family members that was researching the family thought that what set him back down into San Francisco was there was a really cold winter in 62 or 63, and a lot of miners gave up then.

Aimee Cross: 9:22

But then he shows that back in San Francisco in city directories in 63, and he worked as a lithographer, which is like a printer of today and some people thought that maybe he worked for Britton and Ray, lithographers who were very well known.

Aimee Cross: 9:35

Their artwork is in museums in San Francisco and I mean it really is considered artwork. They were the chief map producers in California during the early, you know, the mid 1800s. They did all the early Wells Fargo stuff. They did a lot of the gold rush notes and stuff like that, and so people thought that's how maybe he came in contact with them because of the family background. But I haven't been able to really prove that and I don't know that I'll ever really be able to prove it. But because they were doing a lot of the notes for the minors, maybe even though they were I know they were residing in San Francisco during this time period, but maybe they were making trips up there to be meeting with people and to be, you know, doing the work that they were doing. So maybe that is where they crossed paths. I don't really know for sure.

Crista Cowan: 10:21

And he had had that occupation before in France.

Aimee Cross: 10:23

I don't know. He left France when he was so young, I'm sure, because his dad was a lithographer. It was one of those things where he grew up helping dad in the shop, right, yeah. And I don't know whether he left France initially because he didn't want to be part of the family business, or the gold was just enticing him, like so many, or he just wanted to get out of France because at the time, with the French Revolution, it was rough, or maybe he didn't want to be enlisted into service because that was going to be a mandatory thing during that time. So I really don't know, and there's no family stories about why he did that and did he come completely alone as a teenage kid? You know what? That's the other thing.

Aimee Cross: 11:00

I'm actually using YonStreet's new networks to try to figure some of this stuff out, because I don't know and this is the details that nobody's found out yet that I'm trying to do some of this more, friends. I mean there's no passenger ship lists that really survived from this time period in California. There's really only the newspaper articles. And that's my next step is I want to see who else traveled with him and see. But I really want to fill in the gaps more in the story here, because it's a juicy time period.

Aimee Cross: 11:26

You know, we're talking about the gold rush. We're talking about working for a company that was so well-known and did amazing, beautiful work, and I think for them he would have been a goldmine find to have somebody that grew up in the industry. That must have been so helpful for them to have somebody that really knew what he was doing, and they must have paid him well, because in 1870, he goes back to France and he brings back my second great-grandmother, estelle. Have you known her before? I don't know. I mean, the family lived in a small community in France. So I think so and, to be honest with you, I'm still working on this family because actually some of this stuff has kind of been coming up to my eyes again. You know, like you work on something and then you kind of work on something else and you leave it and I'm digging into this family again. I want to find out more about this family and like even plot, like where they lived because that information is in the French records, so I really need to do more on that.

Aimee Cross: 12:24

So, anyway, but he comes back. She is a bit younger than him, okay so, but not a tremendous amount younger. She's like six or eight years, well, and you think he's in California.

Crista Cowan: 12:30

Like this is not like.

Aimee Cross: 12:32

Oh, I'm going back to France from New York, no, as a matter of fact, it looked like the passenger ship list that I believe is him is. He came up from Panama. So what they did in that time and this is before the Panama Canal they would go to New York and then they would take a boat from New York down south to where Panama is. Then they'd go overland across that narrow strip of land, then they'd get on a boat and go up to San Francisco. That was before the trains were running. You know, cross-country, that was sometimes faster and the preferred method of travel, and it appears that that's how he came Now. When he went back to France, by then the trains were running, so he may have gone just by train across country to New York and left.

Aimee Cross: 13:14

I haven't found him on passenger lists, so that's why there's a few little things that I never found I got to find.

Aimee Cross: 13:20

So anyway, but yeah, he goes back and brings his wife back and she's 23, I think at the time, maybe 25. So she's older and he's like 33 at the time, but still, I think, coming to the United States. I just have so much admiration for my ancestors and all of the people that came with, oftentimes next to nothing, not knowing the language and I just feel like it was so courageous and I love knowing that about my ancestors and hearing their stories, you know. But I think about this woman. She comes from France and comes to live with him in San Francisco and he worked for quite a number of almost 20 years, I think, as a lithographer and then he switched careers and in some directories he's listed as owning kind of a bar or a club. Then in other census records he's listed as an importer of wines and liquors and so and I don't know whether he did that because he had the connections to wine in France or you know what that whole story is there.

Crista Cowan: 14:21

Or if he's just hustling and doing whatever he can to support his family, exactly.

Aimee Cross: 14:24

But they ended up making quite a bit of money. He had. There was a significant estate, at least that there's records of in her estate and so, and they own some property in different places. But the thing that really shed light on her and I got to just read this to you so the thing that shed light to me about Estelle was she died in. Well, let me back up Pierre. Her husband died in 1897. And her kids were just teenagers then. So then she took over the business as a woman and that would have been like a business, right, you know, to be running like a bar or running that kind of a thing, and she did it. And then her oldest son took it over, but then she died in 1904. They were living in San Francisco.

Aimee Cross: 15:09

The San Francisco earthquake happened in 1906. And her will doesn't exist. It was destroyed in the fires that happened after the earthquake and so. But I have found evidences of her will in some deeds because it was quoted when her daughters sold, not just her daughters, when her children sold some of her property, but also in a newspaper article. I was looking at it the other day and I'm like I need to learn more about itelle, but this newspaper article says Mother's Will Gives Advice.

Aimee Cross: 15:41

The Last Testament of Mrs Estelle Dumont Contains Entreaties to Her Children, urges Careful Living. And then it says Other Estates Bequeath to Relatives and Friends of the Thrifty Testators, and it says the use of intoxicating drinks and live a sober and industrious life. And lastly, I recommend to my dear children to gauge always their expenditures by their income, so as never to cause losses to others or bring upon themselves suffering or want unquote. And then it talks a little bit more about her estate. But it said that her estate was worth nearly $50,000, which in 1904, that was a lot of money.

Aimee Cross: 16:31

And as I was diving into the background of this family, her husband died of cirrhosis of the liver. And so you can understand why, and maybe because of the industry that he was in he's sampling all those wines or whatever, the industry that he was in, he's sampling all those wines or whatever. But I just it, just as a mom, especially, I thought about my children and how I want them to succeed in life and I want them to avoid the things that can be so detrimental. And these two, you know like alcoholism is in my family and back in my family ways. And also living within your means is such a thing that can be so difficult to do and, in the absence of having her will and in the absence of having a diary that she wrote or something like this, this really gives me a window into what really mattered to her and what she wanted for her kids. Yeah, and I really like that, and I love the fact that I have these other record groups that can substitute for the thing that I would really have loved to have had was her will or maybe a diary or something like that that, to my knowledge, doesn't exist. It's such an amazing story about her family, but my grandma talked about this side of her family all the time. She was so proud of this line and so proud of the industriousness of her grandfather and her grandmother and how they came from France and really built a very successful life for themselves.

Aimee Cross: 17:56

Yeah, what year was your grandmother born? She was born. My grandmother's birthday is so fun. She was born December 13th, 1914. So it's 12, 13, 14. Easy way to remember, it, isn't that awesome. So it's 12, 13, 14. Oh, that's awesome. Easy way to remember.

Crista Cowan: 18:08

It Isn't that awesome, it's fun, but I ask that because she died after her grandmother passed.

Crista Cowan: 18:15

She only heard from the stories of her mom and that's so, I think, important because so many of us, like you, have the opportunity now to be a grandma and it sounds like you were raised by wonderful grandmothers and that relationship is so important.

Crista Cowan: 18:30

Wonderful grandmothers and that relationship is so important. I knew both of my grandmothers and loved their stories and, you know, have so many great memories of them. As a matter of fact, I was just rethinking through an experience I had with my own grandmother and her sisters we used to call them Nana and the aunts like some geriatric rock band, and my grandmas are so important, and so to know that she was able to be such a great grandmother to you when she didn't have that in her own life, you think about like what example you know she didn't have that example, at least not on that side of her family. I don't know if she knew her other grandmother or not but to think about how you know the choices that we make and the way that life kind of plays out. We sometimes have to step into those roles that we have no model for. Yeah, definitely.

Aimee Cross: 19:17

And I also think it's so important.

Aimee Cross: 19:19

When I was, when I had my kids at home and I was involved in different things, and when my kids were in school, I ran a mentoring program and I did a lot of study on the value of children having other significant adults in their lives other than their parents not to diminish the importance of parents, because you just can't right that's so important but how important it is that children have other people in their lives that unconditionally love them, that are rooting for them, that they can go to for advice, that they just feel that comfort and that support from and that's the best part of being a grandma is giving them that unconditional love and just being in their corner.

Aimee Cross: 19:55

I just think that's such a gift that I get to do that for my grandchildren and honestly, that's part of the reason that I'm doing genealogy and I picked that as a post-children career because it's flexible and I can go and visit my kids and I can be part. None of them live near me and it's an effort to go see them, but it's such a worthwhile effort and I just love it. I love being part of their lives whenever and however I can.

Crista Cowan: 20:23

Yeah, have you shared this story with them?

Aimee Cross: 20:26

I haven't shared the will part because I don't know that. My grandkids are all like nine and under. They're pretty young. But I actually made a book of my grandma Georgette, for my grandkids. That's a kid-oriented book that I've given them because she was just such an and both of my grandmothers actually were just super instrumental in my life and I didn't have any grandfathers. They both had passed when I was younger and so my grandmas were it and they were just. I was really close to both of them in different ways and they're my models and I am lucky, you're right, I am lucky that I got to have them in my life because so many people have not had that opportunity. So I want to be that for my grandkids.

Crista Cowan: 21:05

I'm sure you are doing an amazing job. I'm trying, man, I'm trying. I love that Well. So, as you think about kind of what's next, as you think about them, you know like it's easy to love on littles. But now you're, you know you said nine and under. Now they're kind of heading into those teenage years and those relationships start to change and adjust a little bit. You know, what is it that you hope for the future? Maybe in your relationship with them or in how you transmit some of these stories.

Aimee Cross: 21:33

You know, in all honesty, that's part of the reason I started my YouTube channel was I wanted to, because I tell some of the stories when I'm doing that and I wanted it to survive and I wanted, if something happened to me tomorrow. I love genealogy research, I love tracing my ancestry and I have a lot of work to do actually to document my own family tree. I mean, the tree is there but I want to write books and things like that. That I haven't done, but I want my kids, like I think about that sometimes, will my grandkids be able to go and say, oh, my grandma's teaching me how to do this? Even though things will change, some of the stuff that I'm talking about isn't going to change and the technology may change, the software may change, but the basic principles won't. And my love of it, I think, is exemplified in what I'm doing and I want that to survive.

Aimee Cross: 22:24

I actually had somebody come up to me a couple of years ago that was talking about that and she said I'm starting a YouTube channel. She was maybe 20, maybe 18, 20. She was young, at least from my standards. She said I want to start a YouTube channel just so that I can document my family. I was like rock on. That is amazing. I think that's such a great way. I think we just have to find whatever clicks for us, whether it be some people are incredible story writers I don't think I am, you know, and you're a great storyteller and you're doing this, you know and I think I think we have to figure out whatever is working for us and then do it so that we can transmit those stories to our family, because they disappear when we do if we don't. Yeah, they do.

Crista Cowan: 23:09

Very well said. I love the way that you are being intentional about your grandmotherhood and about your career. So thank you for sharing that with us and thank you for sharing your French immigrant story with us. I think that was lovely. I appreciate you so much.

Aimee Cross: 23:26

Thank you so much. You're amazing and I love what you're doing. Thank you.

Crista Cowan: 23:30

Studio sponsored by Ancestry.