Just One More
By Debra Hutsell
“Dang it” he said, throwing aside his umpteenth roll of microfilm. Tom rubbed his eyes and aching back. He didn’t have the time to pursue this search, but he didn’t know how to stop. “Who doesn’t know who their grandparents were?” he chided himself.
He heard his stomach growl. In his zeal to look at one more roll of film he had forgotten to eat lunch and it was almost dinner time. Just one more, he thought putting on another roll of film. He rolled through the list of names; family’s and neighbors from a small town in Indiana.
While Tom rolled through the mind numbing list of names, he tried to remember exactly what led him to this point.
Over a decade ago, as a curious boy, he found a picture of a young man taken about the time of the 1860’s. It had the name of a town printed on it, Gosport, Indiana. Could this be where the picture was made? Could this be a picture of an ancestor and did he live in Gosport in the 1860’s?”
He reasoned a small town, government census rolls, how long could it take? Tom started his short search for his ancestors. That was over a decade ago; now as a young working father with his own curious little boy, Tom needed some answers. When his boy asked, “Who were my great grandparents?” He wanted to be able to tell him.
He reached the end of the census roll without success.
The growling in his stomach had become a roar and even the librarian looked up. “Just one more,” Tom thought putting on another roll of the government enumerations.
“There they are.” The names seemed to jump off the microfilm as if a jolt of electricity had gone through him.
“What were they like?” The hunger had become insatiable now. He wanted, “Just one more source.”
[Editor’s note – I bet you can relate to this guy’s problem… Right?]
The above column was originally printed in the Sept/Oct 2006 edition of the Genealogical Helper. Used by permission.
Oh yeah, I can relate to his “problem” several times over… and during nearly 25 years of looking for just one more… still looking.