Before I start, I am so sorry we didn’t get to hear our speaker this week because of her health. I hope we can connect with her later. We wish her all the best.

So, for today I ask you to think about the last time you made a new discovery about your family. Maybe it was a vital record. Maybe it was a photo you hadn’t seen before. How did it make you feel?

Let me tell you a little story. Finding vital records is one thing but finding what life was like for our ancestors at a time we weren’t around is another challenge. If we want to talk about life and not just the facts, we must look at less common locations.

So I googled Fleming, Colorado, where my mother was born to see what life might have been like and I found Fleming Colorado History | Town of Fleming, Colorado. I decided to read it, and boy am I glad. What a wealth of description of people, history, land. One story told of 2 rail cars coming with “stock and household goods” just when Fleming was close to becoming a ghost town. One of those cars was from Clinton, Iowa. This caught my attention as it is where my husband’s family was from. I wonder?

Before I could wonder about that long, I came across the beginning of the CB & Q Railroad who my grandfather worked for. By 1908 they took over the railroad in the area. And then this, “A man from Pennsylvania, very familiar with oil fields who had a long nose, thought he smelled oil” The people in the community collected money and began drilling. “The oil man from Penn. would lay on his stomach every day and with his long nose would see if he could smell oil.” None was discovered but what a vision. Just the “long nose” piece kept me reading.

I am picturing this when I turn the page. “Later, about 1910, a water well was being dug by Bert Vance of Fleming…They found oil on the drill bit.” Again, it didn’t pan out. So why tell this story? Bert Vance was a well-driller and my great grandfather. Cool! Pictures of the original drilling with the drills and men, one of which might be him. Although you don’t see faces, it is possible and puts context to what life might have been like for him and his family.

The message, read everything. Look at the community histories regardless of how small the location might be. When Fleming was incorporated there were only about 200 people. At least once it almost became a ghost town. Think of how that would change my history. Don’t just look for the vitals but the story behind the vitals and the names and the places.

Although we could not have our class this week, I hope you were about to put your “nose to the ground” (just had to do that) and take the time to look in some unique places to find the unique stories that might turn out to be “cool” aha moments.

Also, don’t forget to sign up for our next class on citing our resources. I certainly did that with the Fleming, Colorado site. I don’t want to lose those stories!

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com