My Grandfather

I am told that my grandfather was a private man. He was born in Michigan, raised in Tennessee, and came to Ohio as a young adult. What made my grandfather move so much? The story about his youth was that grandfather was in Michigan until his father died when he was 9, so he moved to Tennessee with his mother’s family. I found my grandfather in Tennessee on the 1920 census, when he was just a toddler, but traces of the family is all but gone in 1930.

What secrets do our ancestors hold about their lives? Before talk shows, reality tv, youtube, and even blogs, most people kept their personal lives personal. Our private pains were kept to ourselves, and our past was erased by simply moving to another state.

I only knew my grandfather’s mother’s name because one of my aunts was named after her. I didn’t even know his father’s name until I ordered his social security application. My grandfather was a teenager living in Tennessee at the time of the application. A zip code search by my brother showed people with our last name living in that same zip code. Are these our long lost relatives that my grandfather left behind? For now, I don’t know.

If my grandfather were alive, my inquisitive self would probably ask him some questions about his family. I know in my parents’ time, such questions were deemed inappropriate and rude, but now with genealogy being so important, especially in the African-American community, I could at least know one thing: where is my family?