In the attempt to “prove everything,” some genealogists assume Grandma was wrong about everything she said.
The reality is that the truth sometimes rests in between.
My own Grandma insisted she “remembered” her baptism. I never argued about it, but people raised in the Lutheran or similar faiths typically are baptized as infants. That makes remembering difficult.
When I located the record of Grandma’s baptism, it turned out she could have remembered it. She and two of her siblings were all baptized on the same day when she was five. The minister even came to their home to perform the ceremony.
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This reminds me of when I asked my 80+ year old, mentally challenged aunt how her parents met. She told me they were nurses at a particular hospital, which was called a state insane asylum when I was growing up. All census records for my grandfather for his entire life have his occupation listed as a farmer so I had my doubts about her story. One day I decided to Google their names in quotes so I would get both exact names and there they were, in two or three yearly reports for that hospital, listed as nurses. My grandmother’s sister was even on the list of employees too!! I could hardly believe it. My grandparents were married the year after the last of those reports and apparently moved back to the farm where they raised their children. Lesson learned.
I’m coming up 61, being of sound mind and questionable body. But, while I have absolutely NO memory of my Baptism, I do recall looking out through the slats on my crib — and believe me, I was much younger than five when I slept in a crib. 😛 Just sayin’.
I need to make note of my grandmother’s baptism. All of her family remember that the minister came to her home and held the ceremony on her 93rd birthday. I assume that she was not baptised as a child because she was the grandmother who thought and remembered well until the end. One never knows….
I found a note that my great grandmother wrote out the linage. It was a treasure that helped me with my quest to find my father’s family. When I started he had died 11 years prior so I was thrilled I found that information. However, when checking it all out she had put some in the wrong order but the last names were the same so with more research I was able to get the lines straight. It also helped to find a book about the families and that helped with the line now being in the order that it should be for handing it down to my grandchildren.