My many mothers. Were they whispering the words to me that had been recorded a hundred years or more since they took their last breaths. Speaking to me whom they had never met?
MyManyMothers is to introduce to you to some of my many mothers on my maternal side. These are the ancestors of Velma Mary Carrow Provost, my maternal grandmother. They are like many women you have met throughout your life. I found them competing for my attention. I imagined their personalities. While developing the story of one mother, another one would try to lure me in so that now their story was being written instead. Occasionally, the fathers would interrupt to have their say. You too may find them interesting and marvel at their lives.
Through my genealogy research and study, I have met many of my ancestral great grandparents. While researching where and when they were born, where they were baptized, and when they immigrated to what is now Nova Scotia and Louisiana, I have gotten a sense of who they were. I have learned their ages when they married, the births of children, the loss of loved ones, and the historic events they lived through or participated in. Surprisingly, I have learned so much about my ancestors with so little that was left behind. If only I could see their faces.
My first introduction to my many times great grandparents was almost sterile while gathering data but still exciting each time I found the next nugget. I then spent hours with each one of them as I analyzed the data and learned about the history of their time and place. I imagined the many possibilities of how they came to be; why they were where they were; how they may have met their spouses; what it was like giving birth to 10-18 children in the 17th and 18th centuries; why they named their children as they did; how they crossed the Atlantic ocean on a dank, dark ship full of impoverished immigrants; how they escaped epidemics or managed unspeakable losses and how they survived to create homes, large families, and live long lives.
I patched together their lives with the little data kept by others with no facts that came from their handwritten words, just the words of others that my ancestors may have given to a priest who recorded their baptisms, marriages and deaths or the census taker who recorded the answers to the different questions required by the United States Census Bureau every ten years. As I wrote second- or third-hand biographies, I felt I had developed a real relationship with each one. I want to share with you my findings; but I am also interested in your insights and any information you would want to share. You can contact me through this Contact page.
The stories of Velma’s foremothers are being presented to you in reverse order; meaning Velma’s mother, then her mother’s mother, then the mother’s mother’s mother. Stories of Velma’s father’s mothers were next presented in reverse order. The intention is to move backward in time following daughter, mother, grandmother, and so on for each family line.
It can be hard to follow the female line because the female surname changes when she marries. To aid you in following the relationship between the woman you are reading about and Velma, a chart has been added to show you the line of relationships. If you hav a suggestion for presentation of information for readability, please Contact me.
