Beginning Steps

Nellie Frances Canty was born in New London, Connecticut in 1912.  The first step I took to find out more about my mother was actually the old fashioned way.  I wrote a letter to the clerk in New London and paid for my mother's birth certificate.  When it finally arrived, I not only learned where she was born, I learned for the first time about her parents.   This birth certificate was actually established not when she was born but 30 years later in 1942 by her mother via a sworn affidavit.  Because of this, the information about my grandfather was really based on grandma's memory and not on actual records. 

On this affidavit, my grandmother listed her name as Fannie Billings Enos Canty Saunders.  Fannie was born in 1890 in New London, Connecticut.  Grandfather's name was listed as Thomas Walter Canty.  His occupation was Bugler-U.S. Army - Fort H.G. Wright.  His birthplace was listed as Augusta, Georgia; however, later I found out that he was really born in Barnwell, South Carolina.

This was an exciting experience.  That first rush of adrenaline that comes with finding a new piece of information that previously was unknown.  Since I really didn't know my mother, this was the beginning of making her a real person in my mind.