The View From Wisconsin

It was sitting there, so obvious to me, that I didn't even realize it.

I finally got over to the Waukesha Public Library yesterday (on zero sleep) and looked up the obituary for my great-grandmother Annie Kelly. There, in the depths of the notice in the Waukesha Freeman, was the name of my great-great-grandfather, Peter Riley. Some further peeking around on Ancestry tracked down the name of his wife, Ellen.

So, I now have the names of my entire family going back to the fifth generation - though I do not have the maiden names for two of them. Ironically, they're in the same generational line (my grandmother Houk's grandmothers).

What's even better, I've managed to track down some relations within the Mertens clan to help fill in the blanks among the generations. Of course, it helps that my grandfather's two youngest siblings are still alive on my mom's side (as opposed to my dad's side, where all 13 have passed on).

The cherry on top is that I've managed to expand Sarah's family tree by a bit as well, after tracking down a lot more information about her grandfather's family. Her great-grandfather was missing and presumed dead after a long time, mostly because he never came home one day after fishing.

So for not having a whole lot of sleep over the last few days, I'm feeling pretty good.