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During this long strange year i have tried to look up some old friends from school without much success. Turns out that there are dozens, if not more, of people with the same name. There is only one of me,which makes me easy to find; that' fine until my paranoia kicks in. I don't know if i want to talk to these people, maybe just surreptitiously spy on their lives.
I've had a subscription to Ancestry for a couple years and they have have high school year books but, i have high school year books, so that doesn't help. That is until last weekend when i put together i could look up kids i went to 1st grade with. After my dad died my mom stayed another year in Toledo and then moved back to Cleveland where her and my dad's family lived. She had the best intentions but what she really did was rip out our - us three siblings - support system. The suburb we moved to in the Cleveland area was never home.
Back to the year books, I had a xeroxed* copy of my first grade yearbook page but the pages just had pictures and no names. I knew the first names of a few of these kids and the last of two of them. I looked up Lewis Dikey and he's in communications supposedly making multi, multi, million dollar deals. Ronald Vahay became a jock and there is a sorted divorce record involving him. Then there was Michelle..somebody who i remember sitting next to and having a like sense of humor - whatever first grade humor was. It's funny, the yearbook pages would load on Ancestry and there's all these pictures of 16/17 year old kids from the 70's and in all three cases i picked out their photos then confirmed them with their names on the side.
I researched each and found the information i already mentioned and then i found something that said Michelle had died and a couple tears welled up. Then i found a facebook page that is apparently hers with entries from this year and i'm not sure what it's about. It's not really important because i haven't seen or heard of any of these three since we were 7 years old more than half a century ago. I look on that time with great nostalgia and i know you can't go back. I would never consider contacing these people because they wouldn't remember me. I only remember them becuse of what tht time represents; it represents before. In my family's life there was before and after.
* xerox! did you catch that?
I've had a subscription to Ancestry for a couple years and they have have high school year books but, i have high school year books, so that doesn't help. That is until last weekend when i put together i could look up kids i went to 1st grade with. After my dad died my mom stayed another year in Toledo and then moved back to Cleveland where her and my dad's family lived. She had the best intentions but what she really did was rip out our - us three siblings - support system. The suburb we moved to in the Cleveland area was never home.
Back to the year books, I had a xeroxed* copy of my first grade yearbook page but the pages just had pictures and no names. I knew the first names of a few of these kids and the last of two of them. I looked up Lewis Dikey and he's in communications supposedly making multi, multi, million dollar deals. Ronald Vahay became a jock and there is a sorted divorce record involving him. Then there was Michelle..somebody who i remember sitting next to and having a like sense of humor - whatever first grade humor was. It's funny, the yearbook pages would load on Ancestry and there's all these pictures of 16/17 year old kids from the 70's and in all three cases i picked out their photos then confirmed them with their names on the side.
I researched each and found the information i already mentioned and then i found something that said Michelle had died and a couple tears welled up. Then i found a facebook page that is apparently hers with entries from this year and i'm not sure what it's about. It's not really important because i haven't seen or heard of any of these three since we were 7 years old more than half a century ago. I look on that time with great nostalgia and i know you can't go back. I would never consider contacing these people because they wouldn't remember me. I only remember them becuse of what tht time represents; it represents before. In my family's life there was before and after.
* xerox! did you catch that?
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The internet is incredible and was just made for a little innocuous stalking. I enjoy the sleuthing challenge too. I also found a couple of people awhile back, when I was still on Facebook, from my "before" period, when we lived in the East Bay-- not the profound change that yours was, but still a great change in our lives. But I was under five when we moved, so I only remembered one last name, of my best friend across the street; luckily it was an unusual one. That period belongs only to me, as my middle sister is dead and was still a baby when we moved; my youngest sister didn't live there at all. I also wish we had stayed-- very very much.
I've found a lot of people dead in recent years, including a cousin, so I guess they're not communicating with us any more.
Bet quite a few would remember you, those early memories are on virgin ground and can be very vivid. You need a forum or something where you don't have to approach someone personally.
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Yes, i got the DNA test as a present (that i asked for) a couple years ago; surprising results that have become more fine tuned over time; turns out i'm less German and more Central European and where did i get 3% Norwegian! There must have been a wandering fisherman or something.
They can be fussy, let's see if that lets you see my DNA results; if i open it i won't know if it's because i'm on my computer.
https://www.ancestry.com/dna/origins/DD26F62A-87DF-404B-8B2D-B0A2E7DB1E99
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I wonder if you have access to port records, like the kind they have for Ellis Island, but for different ports, esp. Boston or Halifax. I've never been able to find a record of my mother's father arriving here. I've found the others after much searching through records with every kind of alternate spelling, not to mention the borrowed visas.
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I'll try and copy the page.
Yes they have port records, i have several ancestors who came in through Baltimore. Absolutely, anytime, i would be happy to search for you.
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https://www.tps.org/find-your-school/elementary-schools/harvard-elementary-school.html
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