A New Way Past Brick Walls

Crista Cowan 0:00

When we hit a brick wall in our family tree, our natural instinct is to keep pushing harder, heading straight back, trying to find the parents of that ancestor. It can be so discouraging. But what if coming forward is actually the secret to going backward? Today, my dear friend and ancestry colleague, Jenny Ashcraft, returns to the podcast to share how turning her focus from a single ancestor to documenting all 10 of his children and their descendants broke through a 150-year-old German dead end in her tree. Along the way, she experienced a series of unbelievable miracles that are a beautiful reminder that our ancestors want to be remembered and are probably more willing to help us find them than we sometimes give them credit for. I can't wait for you to hear Jenny's clever strategy and her pure joy in storytelling. I just know it's gonna give you a brand new wave of inspiration for your own family history journey. Enjoy my conversation with Jenny Ashcraft.

Family Stories That Build Resilience

Crista Cowan 1:03

Hi, I'm Crista Cowan, and this is the podcast where telling your family stories can help create a deeply connected family. Welcome to Stories That Live In Us. Jenny, I'm so glad you're back. Everybody loved your story the first time. And uh, as you and I have talked, you have, of course, a plethora of family history stories. And um, but I would just like to know a little bit more about um just like how you're incorporating family history into your family with your kids, with your grandkids.

Jenny Ashcraft 1:39

Well, I have a little bit of a reputation enough, mom, that's that because I love the stories and I love the stories of my ancestors, and I want to pass that along to my children and my grandchildren because I think those stories bring resilience. And when you know where you came from and whose shoulders that you stand on, it it's such a richer life. And and it gives you such an appreciation. And to me, that it's the gratitude. I feel so much gratitude for what my ancestors went through for me to be where I am today.

Crista Cowan 2:18

Yeah, and I agree with you completely, but when your kids or grandkids react with enough, like you keep telling the stories, obviously.

Jenny Ashcraft 2:26

I I try, I in you in unique ways, right? I'll I'll try to find a, you know, an experience that's happening now and relate a story that I've come across. Or we do have a family group chat and I share stories on there quite a bit. And and I, you know, I think they tease me that they don't like it, but I think they maybe really do like it. I think you're right.

Crista Cowan 2:48

And I think more sinks in than we realize sometimes. Like, have you had any experiences where you've realized, oh, like they really were paying attention?

Jenny Ashcraft 2:57

Well, I was sharing, I have a little granddaughter that just turned 11, and I was sharing a story about a female ancestor with her, and she got teary. And for an 11-year-old to get teary, and I had an obituary for this ancestor, and this ancestor had they had called her Aunt Candy because she would give candy to the neighborhood kids that would come over. And and I I I love those, I love when you come across an article that gives a little bit of a personality of somebody. And as I ex you know, shared these stories with her, it it made her a little emotional. And I I love that. I love that she felt that connection.

Crista Cowan 3:38

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that so much. You bring up a really good point, which is that sometimes, like as we're digging into our family history, there aren't those kind of personal details. And so I think that's one of the things that I love about like really digging in is sometimes we can extract just enough to be able to tell a story that has some personality, but it also points to the fact that we should be telling our own stories and making sure that we share those personal details with the next generation.

Why Your Own Stories Come First

Crista Cowan 4:04

Um, I've I've been talking to my parents. My parents just moved here. That's so great. I've never lived in the same place as my parents my whole adult life. Um uh and my mom made some funny quip the other night. She said, Well, now I live in the same town I'm gonna be buried in because they bought their burial plots here in Pleasant Grove ages ago.

Jenny Ashcraft 4:22

So there's the fam, the Sunday family history nights are now going to be.

Crista Cowan 4:26

In person, yes. So, um, and so we were talking about that. And then my mom just said the other night, she said, Oh, well, I like I think I want to write my own obituary and plan my own funeral. And I was like, I would love for you to do that, not just because I don't want to have to do that in the moment when I'm grieving, but also like I want your personality to be infused in that. I want you to make sure that you're remembered for what you want to be remembered for. And so as you think about like sharing the ancestor stories with your kids and grandkids, are you also sharing your own stories?

Jenny Ashcraft 4:55

You know what? You are actually making me feel very guilty right now because I have not been the greatest keeper of my own stories. And in fact, my husband and I were just talking about this a couple of weeks ago, and we set a goal, believe it or not, this is literally in the last month, that on Sunday afternoons we were going to do one of those like 50 questions and record our own answers to those 50 questions. It came up because there was a big flood in Rexburg, Idaho in the 1970s. And he was in that flood and was rescued from his rooftop. And he shared a story with our kids on our family chat, and they loved it. They loved hearing his, you know, it was written shortly after the event. And I said, we need to be, I here I am, the one that's preaching family history and loves to do loves to research and loves to gather those stories. And I haven't been very good about doing my own, but I I'm making a goal to change and do a little better.

Crista Cowan 5:51

Good for you. Well, and it's interesting because when we tell the, you know, when we try to create that storytelling culture in our family, we tell them stories of people they don't know, they're not interested. But you tell them a story about yourself and all of a sudden they start to see you in a different way. But I think it also opens the door because when they realize, oh, I love this story because it's about my grandma. And then when you tell a story about your grandma, they can connect the dots. Oh, I love that. I love that, yes. So that is like like that's where I think so many of us like fail to start with ourselves, is because we're like, oh, like I'm the grandma, I'm the mom. Like you're I I'm interested in these stories from long ago, but you have to get them interested too. I love that. I love that.

A 150 Year German Dead End

Crista Cowan 6:34

Well, um, speaking of stories from long ago, you have a I think it's a German brick wall that you were working on. I do.

Jenny Ashcraft 6:41

I have I had a I have a couple of German brick walls, one which we burst through and we figured it out, and it was just the happiest day, and one that I have literally been chipping away at for almost two decades, but I'm getting close. Okay, and I have something coming that I think might help. But I do, I have a do you want to hear it?

Crista Cowan 7:01

Yeah, first how kind of ground us in like how you're related to these people.

Jenny Ashcraft 7:05

Okay, so this is a story of my second great-grandparents, and that's not that far back. This is an ancestor, my second great-grandfather, his name's John Fink. He was born in Vurttemberg. I hope I'm saying that right. I think I am. Virtenburg, Germany, uh, in 1846, and he died in Scottsbluff, Nebraska in 1924. That's not that long ago.

Crista Cowan 7:28

And is this on your mom's side or your side? This is on my dad's side. And so did you know the grandparent on that side? No, she died before I was even born. But this is her grandfather.

Jenny Ashcraft 7:37

Yes. Yes. So uh well, what how it started, Krista, and you're a woman who loves charts, right? I I love family history, and I am looking at our at our family chart, at our fan chart, and I see this huge void. And I, you know, you want to see that populated with all of these people that came before, and there is this void. And I thought, I am going to figure this out. I I'd heard for years that this was a this was a a brick wall. And so I thought, I am gonna figure this out. I am going to do what I need to do. I I think I'm a uh you know, smart enough genealogist now that I can do this. So I did the first thing I did was really something you teach, your fan network, right? I called my my dad's last living sibling, my aunt, and I knew she loved genealogy and had worked on this family, had worked on this person. And I said, Listen, you know, I why can't we figure this out? And she said, Oh, Jenny, this is I have worked so hard on this, and I just can't seem to break through. We knew we know what year he immigrated, but we just couldn't get back to Germany. And anybody who has German ancestors, uh, do you have German records? I do. They have great German records. Good records, yeah. Like great records. And I thought, I just need to make that jump to get over to those records. And I told her, I'm determined, I am going to do this. And she said, I just want you to know it's not going to be easy and it may be impossible. So I said, Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready to dive in. So I I kind of started at him and my family tree, and I was attaching all the records and adding every census. And what year did he immigrate? He immigrated in 1866. So he was about twenty. He was 20. Okay. He was 20 when he came over. Okay. By himself, supposedly? For all I knew at that point. Okay. So you're finding him in U.S. Census Records. And he's saying, I'm from Vernburg, I'm from Germany. Uh immigration here is it's all consistent. But, you know, he literally had hundreds of descendants, and nobody knew anything back to Germany. And so I I thought, I am gonna figure this out. So I honestly I started praying about it. And I would pray about this every night, going, I I just need some heavenly help. And I don't, I don't know if you're like this, but one of I I love family history, but kind of the shot in the arm that just keeps me going that I love so much are those little miracles that I see, like those random phone calls or an a random message on ancestry or a random packet of stuff in the mail.

Crista Cowan 10:25

Isn't that what your episode was about in season one?

Jenny Ashcraft 10:27

Yes, it's and you just you think there is no way that just happened. But I I I have really come to believe that heaven has an interest in my finding my ancestors because they are there and they have an interest in being remembered and being found. And so I was just, I started praying about this and I thought I am gonna figure this out. And um I everything I was trying, I just wasn't getting anywhere.

Research Descendants To Find Origins

Jenny Ashcraft 10:54

And one day I had this a little bit of this thought that it was a light bulb moment, an impression, whatever you want to call it. And I realized I had been going about this wrong. I was trying to kind of go straight back my line and attach those records and find, and I realized this man had 10 children, not all of their spouses were even in the tree. They all had children. There were literally hundreds of people, and I I suddenly just knew that if I spent some time researching all of those children, then I would figure it out.

Crista Cowan 11:31

Isn't that crazy? Because we some like we get so stuck in this like linear concept of like go backwards, go backwards, go backwards, that it doesn't occur to people to come forward in order to go backwards.

Jenny Ashcraft 11:41

I thought I've got to start at the beginning. Yeah. And and that's exactly that's exactly what I did. So I my the impression was so clear that I called my brother, like immediately. He was living in Chicago at the time, and I said, Listen, we're about to have a breakthrough. I I I have just realized that if I figure out all of John Fink's descendants and and you know, document them and attach every record possible, we're gonna figure this out. And I'm making a commitment and I want you to come out here with me. He and he said, What do you mean? I said, Let's plan a date. I need like probably six weeks to do this. Let's plan a date, like maybe in six weeks to two months, and you fly out and we're gonna have a miracle. And he he said, Well, okay, you know, he's not that into family history, but he was like, sure, I'll do it. I said, Great. So I had to get to work. So I just became immersed in this family. And, you know, I took those 10 children, some of the spouses were attached, but not all. And, you know, often as you're, you might find a newspaper article about a great granddaughter that talks, that gives the hometown of her great-grandfather. You just don't know. So I am just attaching every record, and you you get to know this family, right? You get to, you they start taking on a personality and you learn the the families they married into and their migration paths and where they all moved. And I'm really becoming invested in this family.

A Newspaper Bio Reveals His Name

Jenny Ashcraft 13:10

And I came across a newspaper article about John Fink being a one of the pioneers of Scotts Bluff. He uh got a uh a homestead there and was one of the first that helped settle that city, and it had a about a three-paragraph bio of him that was gold. And I started reading it, and the very first line says, Wilhelm Gottlieb, John Fink, in parentheses. What came to Scottsbluff, you know, and start and I'm like, wait, Wilhelm Gottlieb? What is that name? Is that his name, Wilhelm Gottlieb? And he had kind of adopted John. And so I'm like, this is a huge clue. And then I keep reading, and it talks about his children. I knew about them. It talks about when he moved to Illinois, found the homestead record, but then it said he came, his father had come to America several years earlier. And I'm like, wait, his father was here? And then he said, and his father, William, died in Illinois. So this is this is all new information. And I'm like, oh my goodness. So I immediately go to Illinois Records and I'm trying to find any William Fink. And I find one that, you know, kind of fit the the age, probably, that died in 1898, but I I didn't know if that was him. He was in a in Pyatt County, Illinois. And I thought, okay, I'm gonna come back to that. I've I've got this deadline approaching. I've got to finish this. I literally you gave yourself a deadline. Well, I don't know what it was. Like I just had this strange confidence that I would in six weeks. That in six weeks. I know that sounds so that's so funny. So um I I put that a little bit on the back burner, and I worked so hard, and I documented that family, and I had them figured out, and that day arrived, and my brother flew in, and I was giddy with excitement. I was so excited, and I didn't know what was gonna happen, but I'm like, something's gonna happen. And I said, Let's go to the family search library.

The FamilySearch Library Table Miracle

Jenny Ashcraft 15:15

That's where it's gonna happen. And and he's just kind of you know, humoring you, humoring me. So we got up in the morning. I mean, I was so excited. I was up so bright and early, and we got ready, and I I turned to some of my daughters that were there, and I said, We are gonna go have a miracle. Does anybody want to come? And my oldest daughter, Madeline, she said, I'm in, I'll come. So the three of us drive to the family search library downtown in downtown Salt Lake City, and we get out of the car, and I'm just practically skipping up to the door. And I kind of suddenly have this realization, what am I doing? Like, what am I gonna look for? I don't know where, I don't know what I'm expecting to find here and what I'm going to do. And we walked in and he said, my brother said, Well, where should we go? And I thought, I don't know. And I said, Well, let's go to the international floor. That seems like a logical place. So Was that B2? I think it was B2. I think you know that floor. So we we take the elevator up, the elevator doors open, and there is this crowded room. It's kind of the holiday season, and there is, it's busy, the library's busy. And I'm looking around and I I don't even know if there's anywhere for us to kind of sit together. But way across the room, I see kind of a longer conference type table. And there's a woman alone at the end, but there's three seats at the other end. So we walked over there and I said, Do you mind if if we join you at this end of the table? And she said, Of course, sit down. So we sat down and and my daughter, my brother kind of looked at me again like, what now? And I said, Well, let's let's just start by talking about what we know. We know his name's Wilhelm Gottlieb Fink. We know he came from Virginburg. We know he arrived in 1866. You know, we know that he died in Scott Scotts Bluff, and I'm kind of re you know, rehearsing the things that we had learned. And this woman at the end of the table says, Are you trying to find somebody from Virtenberg? And I said, Yes. And she said, You need to look at these books. And she kind of comes over, guides me by the arm, walks me over to the library, and there's the shelf of books, kind of like a set of encyclopedias. And she says, This is the Vurtenberg Immigration Index. This will track all those immigrants. And I'm like, okay. And she took out a book and she's flipping through it and showing me how to find how it works and how to use the index. And she was so knowledgeable. And I finally just stopped and I turned to her and I said, You know so much about these books. And she paused for a minute and she said, I actually wrote them. What? And I said, What? You wrote these books? And she said, I don't know.

Crista Cowan 18:05

That's miracle number two.

Jenny Ashcraft 18:07

Right.

Crista Cowan 18:07

Right?

Jenny Ashcraft 18:07

You found the article that listed the name. Now you've got her. And I and she said, you know, I studied every immigrant from from Wurttemberg that came to America. If you tell me the name, I might remember what village they came from. And I said, Well, his name was Wilhelm Gottlieb Fink. And she said, you know, there were some Finks that came from a town called Gronau. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right either. So I don't either. Oh, Gronau, Gronau, I don't know. Anyway. And and she said, Well, let's figure out if that's him. And she guides me over to the film drawers and she's like, Let's find the Gronau church films. She doesn't even have to look up where they are. She just knows. She opens the drawer, she flips through, she pulls out a box, we go over to a reader, she puts it in, we start advancing to 1866, and we come to the month that he immigrates, and there is the little entry that says, Wilhelm Gottlieb Fink and John Frederick Fink have gone to North America. And there he is. And I am just astounded. Like I am astounded. It's uh for 150 years our family hadn't known this information. And I was literally speechless. And then I cried, crying again. Uh-huh. I cried, I just couldn't believe it. And I mean, what are the chances that this woman happened to be there as a patron that day, that we happened to sit at her table, that she happened to overhear us and knew the name and knew the village. And so with that, the the floodgates opened.

Two Brothers Separated At The Ship

Jenny Ashcraft 19:50

You know, now I knew where I I figured out his mother, his father, um his I I learned some stories. His mother had passed away when his brother uh was four and he was eight. So Carl was four and John was eight, and his mother had passed away. And dad, William, a year or two later says, I need to make a better life for my family. So I'm going to head over to North America. I'm gonna go to America, I'm going to get established, and then I'm gonna send for you. There's three kids at home there's uh Carl, John, and a sister, Rosina. Well, he gets here to America, he's trying to get established, and it's now 1861, and we all know what that means in American history. It's the Civil War. And I don't really know, Krista, if if uh he William's telling the kids, don't come, yeah. Or if they they don't I don't really know the But they're all still teenagers at the time. They're they're still young. They're still young. The oldest is Rosina. Were they living with a family? They were living with relatives and grown out with with cousins. And um 1866 comes, the Civil War ends, and I found now that I know he has a brother, Carl, uh Carl ends up settling in Lincoln County, um uh Lincoln, Logan County, Illinois. So did John and Carl actually come together? They came together. But that's a sweet story too, because this town history from Illinois that's talking about Carl says that Carl immigrated in 1866, and he with he and his brother saved up their meager savings, traveled in, you know, the steerage class, a typical, you know, not very wealthy immigrant, very poor immigrant, um, got to the docks, they loaded on the ship together, and there was a lot of chaos with everybody getting on, and the officials suddenly said, Wait, we've overloaded this the ship is too low on the The water. These are sailing ships at this point, right? And they decided that they have to remove some of the passengers and put them on the next ship. And in the chaos, these two brothers get separated, and one is removed from the ship. And they, I I can you imagine they're 16 and 20 years old. And they have uh virtually no money, and they're sailing separately. They've become separate. I mean, can you imagine the worry and the stress and the and the fear and the courage that that must have taken? And they land separately. One, my my second grandfather, John, goes up to Rockland County, New York, where he marries, and Carl heads down towards Illinois, and they won't see each other for several years. But then we come back to William, the grandfather, the father, the who's already here, and I'm still wanting to know is is this him? I've got to figure it out.

Proving The Father’s Illinois Death

Jenny Ashcraft 23:01

So I start diving into William because I've made this major breakthrough in Germany. But I need to know, is this William Fink? I suspect it is because Pyatt County and where his son Carl lived were one hour away. So I'm suspecting that's kind of close and uh he meets the criteria. He's from Germany, he's living alone, he's a grocer. I I think this may be him, and I start doing the same thing, digging through all the records, and nothing's really confirming if this is him or not. And I decide I've got to go there. So I I had reached out to the historical genealogical society there, and I said, Do you have any any records? And there was nothing digitized, and they didn't weren't really in a position to go dig for me. And but she said, I do know we do have some very crumbling newspapers from that era here in the society. And I I I just ate away at me until I thought, I've just got to go. So I made arrangements. I flew to my brother's house in Chicago, and we he drove down with me one weekend, and this kind lady at the at the society had made arrangements to come and open the the office for us and um brought out the papers. I mean, and these are so delicate that I'm turning a page and sometimes it would break. And I come to the date for William Fink, and um I find a death notice, and it says William Fink was found deceased. He is the town grocer. Um, his body was claimed by his son Carl, and we've notified the daughter Rosina. So John wasn't mentioned in there, but the other two kids were, and it confirmed. So what happened to Rosina? So Rosina, right as these boys were immigrating, got married and moved to Switzerland. Oh. So she didn't come, she went on with her own life in a different direction. And these two boys came. They were the only three living siblings of all the siblings born to these parents. And um here we'd figured it out. We had finally made these connections and and you know, to go from not having that fan chart filled out to just enriching it and adding and populating it with all these family names was such a gift. It was so amazing. And the stories, it was so such an amazing experience. And it just really taught me that it really taught me a lot about brick walls. And you don't start at that person.

Crista Cowan 25:35

Yeah.

Jenny Ashcraft 25:35

That's that was my biggest takeaway. You don't start there, you go back and you, you know, I think in other brick walls I've encountered, oftentimes that that answer comes in some other generation, some great grandchild somewhere else, a newspaper article, a military record, something. It didn't happen that way for me, but it still ended up getting us the same end result.

Crista Cowan 26:00

Oh, I love that. Yeah, last season uh I did an episode for the state of Ohio about my third great-grandfather, and he was from Ireland, and everybody always just said Ireland, Ireland, Ireland. And there wasn't and to do Irish research. Well, that's the thing, right? To do to do Irish research, you have to know where in Ireland they came from. And nothing anywhere said where in Ireland he came from. And so I did the same thing. He had 13 children, and then I started researching all of the grandchildren. Did the children come here? Did they come from here? He came here. Oh, he came here. He was the immigrant, yeah. So that's why we didn't have any additional details. But as we started researching the children and grandchildren, the grandchildren started kind of spreading out across the country. And one of his grandchildren, I think, had gone to Iowa and had helped found a little town there, and there had been a biography written in a county history about him, and it talked about how he had come from Ohio and that his grandfather had immigrated from County Down, Ireland. From County Down. I have ancestors in County Down. That's so awesome. But like, but if I hadn't researched all those grandchildren, I never would have found that one piece of information that led me back to that.

Jenny Ashcraft 27:07

That was exactly what I found. You can't you can't go linear. Just like you say, you have to go, you have to spread, spread the love and check all those, you know, research all of those children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and and that's what I'm saying.

Crista Cowan 27:22

And that's really like that's the practical answer, but I love that your story illustrates this also really beautiful. Like, you cannot tell the story of John without also telling the story about his dad. Yes. And also telling the story about his brother Carl, right? Like the stories of our families and the stories of our lives are told in the totality of those relationships, not just a person

The Mystery Call And Grave Marker

Crista Cowan 27:44

in isolation.

Jenny Ashcraft 27:44

Well, you know, once I discovered that William was my third great grandfather, and that bear that death record I had found did say he's buried in the old Mansfield cemetery. And I went to find a grave and I'm trying to find the headstone and it's not there. And so I finally called the cemetery thinking, you know, maybe somebody will just shoot a picture of it for me. And they they said, we don't have record of that grave. And I'm, I think I said, Well, his death record says he was buried there. And they said, Well, you know, our cemetery record, we don't have the old records. They're probably somewhere, but we we our records that we have here don't go back that far. And I I started calling everybody in Piette County. You know, does anybody know where the old cemetery records are? Was he buried there? And um this is this is several months after this all happened. And one one morning I'm in the shower, I'm shampooing my hair, and I hear my phone ringing. And you never get out of the shower and answer the phone, right? That's just weird and not a good idea. But for some reason, I was just compelled, I've got to get this phone. And I jumped out and I answered the phone. And a gentleman's voice said, Is this Jenny Ashcraft? And I said, Yes. And he said, I hear you're looking for the cemetery records, the old records from Mansfield Cemetery. And I said, Yes, I am. And he said, Well, I I have them. I'm like, oh, that's amazing. I said, Could you look and tell me, do you have a burial for a man named William Fink? And he said, I do. It's it's an unmarked grave, but I uh he's here. And I said, Well, can you tell me the plot number of the grave, you know? And he says, Yes, I'm grabbing a pen. I mean, water's dripping and ink's running, but I write down and he said, It's actually not one grave because back then when you bought a plot, you bought a plot of five. So I'm gonna give you the five numbers and the section, and and he is buried there. I don't know which one of the five, but he's he's there and it's an unmarked grave. And I'm like, oh, that's so great to know. And so I started doing a little digging and realized there is no headstone at all. And a lot of these extended family members that I had found in this journey that I'd connected with on Ancestry, that I'd connected with on Family Search, I kind of shot this email and I said, You guys, I I've got to buy a headstone. This, this is this guy, what he did for our family. And if anybody wants to contribute, no pressure, but let me know. And I had some very generous cousins and everybody pitched in a little bit of money, and we purchased a headstone, and I called the cemetery and I said, Listen, I want to have a headstone placed there in another for an unmarked grave. And I explained that I have the five numbers, but I didn't know which one it was. And he's like, Where did you find those records? And I'm like, Well, somebody called me. I'd been calling all around. He goes, Well, who? And I'm like, I actually don't know. It was just, it was so chaotic when I'm answering the phone. I didn't get a name. I still don't know who called me. Are you kidding me? I don't know who called me, but somebody had them and somebody got a message that I was trying to find them and called me and gave me the numbers. And I told him the numbers, and he's like, Yeah, back then they sold them in blocks of five. And and I said, I just don't know where to place this headstone. And he's like, Well, we can, you know, there's a couple things we could do to try to figure out which one it is. And he uh did those things. They sent a probe, they do different things, and he came back and he said, We don't know, it's just been too long, we don't know. And so we all my cousins that I just meeting for the first time, we had like really such a sacred privilege, really, of placing a headstone right in the middle of the plot of five. And now that grave is marked, and and it's just you know, such with such gratitude that we were able to do that. I mean, what they did for our family is just it's you can't imagine.

Crista Cowan 31:48

That's amazing. Oh, and now I need to know like, was there some random person in Illinois that just happens to have a bunch of graveyard records in their living room? Or was that a call from the other side of the veil?

Jenny Ashcraft 32:00

Krista, I it's so dumb that I didn't get a name, but it was just I was so focused on he had the information that I didn't get a name. And when they asked me who it was, I I couldn't tell them. Wow.

Crista Cowan 32:14

But I hope I did it right. But we marked a grave. That's amazing. Oh my goodness. What a fantastic story, Jenny. Thank you so much for sharing that. Um I just love everything about your persistence and your tenacity and your willingness to like go to the places and to pray the prayers and to put the pieces together. And it sounds like you didn't just find John's story or the story of his father or his sub his siblings, but you also have connected these cousins now as well, which is also really lovely. We're Facebook friends now, so it's awesome. So fun. Okay, well, before I let you go, we have this new tradition on season three

One Word One Story Costume

Crista Cowan 32:53

of the podcast. It is called One Word, One Story. So uh I'm gonna pull a word from the story box and we are going to just see what memories come up. Oh, this is fun. So today's word is costume.

Jenny Ashcraft 33:14

Oh, okay. Okay, I don't know if this would be really costume, but I'll tell you what comes to what comes to mind. When this this second great grandfather, his granddaughter, who was my dad's mother, okay, who passed away before I was born, I've always I've always wanted to meet her so much. And my I my dad had such a fun, cute personality, and I just know she would. Like I just I would love to meet her. And there wasn't a lot of photographs back then. And um there was one photograph that I came across that is in our family, and it's beautiful, and she's I think she's going to some kind of a school dance at like a high school age, and um she's got this, she's sitting with her legs crossed, and she's got this beautiful dress on, and she's she's beautiful. And it says dance costume. Oh. So that's what came to my mind.

Crista Cowan 34:10

I love that. Well, costumes are a big deal in my life because my birthday is the day after Halloween. And so my whole life, my birthday parties were always Halloween costume parties. Um, and then the summer I turned 18, my dad's two sisters, my aunts, opened a costume shop on Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles. No way. Yeah. And so for my birthday, almost every year through my 20s and into my 30s, I would go down and spend the week working in the costume shop, helping them because it just got overrun and crazy. But it also meant I got to just dress up in all sorts of fun costumes. And so, like, that's like I think costumes, I think about my Aunt Rhonda in the costume shop. And um, and I've kind of just continued to carry that through. I am an adult who still dresses up for Halloween.

Jenny Ashcraft 34:56

I think you've actually won some of the ancestry costume concepts.

Crista Cowan 35:00

We met half, yes. We do very great themed group costumes. Okay, well, the word for one word, one story this week is costume.

Share Your Story And Closing

Crista Cowan 35:09

So if you are watching on YouTube, leave your story connected to the word in the comments. I would love to read through those. If you're listening on a podcast app, you can post your story on Facebook or Instagram. Be sure to tag me so that I can follow along with the stories that you are sharing. Jenny, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing the Finks and that research and just your just I just love everything about how you light up when you talk about family history. Studio sponsored by Ancestry.