Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Pick an Ancestor: What Story Lines Do You Want to Explore?

It's Saturday, which means it's time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun from Randy Seaver.  I had a very busy week and didn't have time to write at all, so I'm making up by doing last week's challenge.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music) is:

1.  Pick one of your ancestors whom you want to know more about.  Based on your knowledge of that person's life, what story lines do you want to explore?

2.  Tell us about your ancestor and the story lines of interest to you in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook comment.

Partly prompted by my sister's comment on a recent post, this time I will focus on my great-grandmother Laura May (Armstrong) Sellers Ireland.

• Tell me about your parents, Joel Armstrong and Sarah Ann Deacon Lippincott.  How do you remember them?  What did they look like?

• How much formal schooling did you have?  Did you enjoy school?  What were your favorite and your least favorite subjects?  Did you generally get good grades?

• Did your parents divorce?  If so, when?  Did either one remarry?  If yes to the latter question, how well did you get to know the new spouse (and family, if there was one)?

• Did you know any of your grandparents or older generations?  Aunts and uncles?  I would love to hear about them.

• Did you know about your sister's first marriage, which apparently was annulled?  Why was it annulled?  Were your parents upset about the marriage?

• Was that your mother living with you in 1900 when you were enumerated in the census at your granduncle and grandaunt's house?  Tell me about your granduncle and grandaunt and what they were like.  Did your grandaunt really have three children who died between 1900 and 1910?

• Who got you pregnant with your first child?  How long had you known him?  Did you want to have his name on the birth certificate?  How did your son Bertram Lynn's birth certificate end up being listed as a girl named Gertrude L.?

• How did you meet Elmer Sellers?  How long had you known him before you married in November 1903?  Were you happy with him?

• It must have been difficult and sad to have so many of your children die so young.  Did you have funerals for any of them?  Did Elmer's mother help with their burial expenses?

• It also must have been very difficult for you when Elmer died so young.  Did Elmer's mother pay for his funeral?  Did she help you financially after that?  Did you have to go to work?  Did the older children work to help support the family?

• When did Elmer's mother die?  How well did the two of you get along?  Was she a good grandmother to your children?

• How did your children react when you had a daughter three years after Elmer had died?  Who was that child's father?  Why didn't you provide his name for Bertolet's birth certificate?

• How big of a wedding did Bertram and Elizabeth have?  Did you like Elizabeth?  How did you feel when your first grandchild was born?

• Your grandson died at the age of 2, and then your daughter Bertolet died at the age of 6.  How did the family handle these sad events?  Why didn't you include Bertolet's father's name on her death certificate?

• Your oldest son, Bertram, wrote in a list of everywhere he had lived that from 1927–1928 he was out west with no fixed location.  Do you remember that period?  Was that the truth?  Do you have any idea what he was doing during those years?

• Is it true that you married John Ireland only because someone said you needed a man's help?  And is it true that you dumped him when you figured out you really didn't need his help?  Did you stay married until he died?

• How did you manage to be not at home when the census taker came around in 1940?  Were you trying to avoid him?  Were you living by yourself at that time?

• What prompted you to get an amended birth certificate for Bertram, your oldest child, in 1940?  Did he need it for a security clearance at his job?

• Did you know that Catherine was flipping a bird in one of the photos that Anita took of you and your four adult children at Betty's house?

• When did you move to Florida to live with Bertram and his wife?