Sunday, October 3, 2010

Who Am I?

"What's your mother's maiden name?"  Now there is a question that I have been able to answer for years.  "My mother's  maiden name is Canty."  "How do you spell that?"  I knew the answer to that too.  "C-A-N-T-Y, Canty." 

My mother died when I was five years old.  I had just a few pictures and some information that my father shared with me.  But contact was lost with her family.  Today you can do research with the click of a finger.  In the 1950's, keeping track of each other when they moved away was much more difficult.  For those reasons and perhaps the challenge my father had in raising a five-year old, my mother's Canty family was lost in my life. 

The loss of my mother, Nellie Frances Canty, has affected my entire life.  It has affected the way I raised my children, the choices I have made in spiritual matters and how I view living on a daily basis.  Thankfully, due to the encouragement of a friend, I decided much later in life to to search out my mother's story.   I am finding out in this process  not only who she was and who her family was, but who I am.

5 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your new genealogy blog!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm excited for you on this journey! I look forward to keeping up on it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Welcome to the geneablogosphere, Debbie!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm looking forward to following your journey.

    ReplyDelete
  5. My father's mother died when he was an infant - and I think it affected nearly every decision he ever made, too. Do you have memories of your mother? I hope you do, even though you were so young. Congratulations on your choice to search out your mother's story and family. Success to you!

    ReplyDelete