A 2014 update

While I have not blogged on my family history journey for over two years, it has not ceased to be a big part of my life when free time allows.  Where do I even begin?  My family has been instrumental in helping me develop my knowledge and get organized.  My grandfather, George Oerke's brother, Ken, has been an amazing help in not only providing monetary funds to keep my Ancestory.com research going, but to provide me with boxes upon boxes of pictures and old documents we cleared out of my grandparent's house.  He has also entrusted me with some very old photographs that have no copy and a wealth of knowledge that he and my grandfather put together years ago.

I hope to get the Spragen side of the family more involved this upcoming year.  Several of my father's aunts and uncles are starting to pass away.  Once they are gone, the family knowledge will be gone as well.  I simply can not allow this to happen.  I lost so much information when my father's parent's died.  It took me over a year to realize that my great grandfather was in fact not Arthur Clayton as his tombstone says, but Chester Arthur.  Can you imagine what a big deal this becomes in trying to find information?  Not having the right name to even start with?!

When my grandmother, Barb Oerke, passed away May 16, 2011, my grandparent's house was cleaned out with the decision to move my grandfather to Denver for the remainder of his life.  During the crazy process of cleaning out drawers, cabinets, and years and years of collections, I was determined more than ever to make sure that the historical items in my grandfather's possession were found and kept save.  Among the treasures I found were the following:

George Oerke's foreign coin collection

George Oerke's license plates from his old cars

Oh no!  There is more!!!!

More old photo negatives than I can count

Even old items of clothing!

A pair of well worn child's shoes

I wish people truly understood how excited these items make me!  Being able to not only see, but touch and look at pieces of history is so fantastic!

I am working hard to find ways to preserve the items I have.  Most of these were stored in my grandparent's basement.  I have some plastic totes I have purchased as well as protective plastic sleeves designed to preserve photos.  Even so, there is so much more I want to do!  Hopefully soon, I will have protect sleeves for the old license plates arriving by mail and I am doing some research to not only find how to develop these old photo negatives but also how to preserve them better than the original paper bag they came in back in the 40's and 50's.  

My research is continuing, and I will post soon some of the new developments I have in those areas as well.