Gratification

I have been interested in my family tree since my Father died in 1980, leaving me at age 24 with half-remembered stories of his family, and with only his parents' and siblings' names in my possession. Within four years, I started badgering my Mother for stories of her family, and who we were related to on Chincoteague Island and elsewhere. I knew that Mom's grandparents on her fathers' side were Swedish; on her Mom's side of the family, Iccky D's father (Mom's great-grandfather) was an immigrant from Denmark; the rest were Chincoteaguers.
Over the years, I've decided that unless I visit Sweden, I'll probably never know the heritage of my grandfather's parents. After all, they had extremely common names - Andreas/Anders Johansson and Hannah Olson/Olesen - so it's like trying to find a single John Smith and a Mary Jones in the US without an idea of where to look. I have tried once to get the Naturalization documents for Andrew Peterson, but the address I had was faulty and the request was returned; I still plan on requesting it again, in hopes that I'll be able to find previously unknown information.
Last night, however, I had a brainstorm and realized that I had Andrew Peterson's birth date from his cemetery headstone. So I searched for a man with that name (or a variation of Andrew), with that birth date. I knew that Great-Aunt Jean had converted to Mormonism, and had been told that her information was on file in Salt Lake City. I found Great-Aunt Jean's file. She got her information directly from her Grandfather, Andrew Peterson... and so, last night, after over 25 years of searching, I found that Andrew's parents names were Peter Sorensen and Johanna Pederson; that he immigrated via Copenhagen, but he was raised in Gylling, Jutland, Denmark. I will, of course, verify this info as much as I am able to do. - I finally have another set of names in the family tree! I need to find out if these are, indeed, correct; and then I get to search for their parents. (And, heaven help me, I wonder how many men in Jutland had a father named Soren, and how many women had a father named Peder/Peter.....)

It's cool, foggy and cloudy again today. We had a high of 38 yesterday, and are hoping for a high of 50 today. Supposedly, it will be in the mid-70s on Saturday. Lovey is curled up in my lap, where she spent most of yesterday. Banichi is curled up on the foot of the bed, and I know that if I should sit on the edge of the bed, I'd have him in my lap as soon as possible. My cats are quite a comfort - and just as entertaining as TV, if not more!