Rahimah Rahim - Mom, Where Are We From?: A Genealogical Guide for Children

Mom, Where Are We From?

A GENEALOGICAL GUIDE FOR CHILDREN

Written by

RAHIMAH RAHIM

Illustrated by Faria Asan

Copyright 2016 Rahimah Rahim.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-7195-3 (sc)

978-1-4907-7196-0 (e)

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Jean sat at her desk staring into space. She was thinking about a subject that had been bothering her a lot lately. Where did her family come from?

She had asked her mom and dad a million times but all they could tell her was; well, your grandmother and grandfather on your mothers side were from Georgia, and your grandmother and grandfather on your dads side were from South Carolina, and you are from Boston.

Jean sighed and said, that is not what I mean, my friend George is from Ireland.

Marias family is from Mexico.

Jennys family is from Japan.

Farids family is from Uganda.

Where are we from?

Thats a good question, said Mom. Lets try to find out.

A few days later, Jeans science teacher was out sick. A substitute teacher came to her class. The teacher was very exciting. She told the students about a genealogy study she was doing to trace her family roots. Jean sat upright in her chair. She leaned forward and listened closely to what Miss Miller, the substitute teacher, had to say.

I always wanted to know where my family came from, so this is what I did to find out. She smiled as she took the bright yellow marker and began to draw circles on the board.

As she drew the circles, she spoke out loud to the class, pausing every few minutes to make sure they understood what she was saying.The first thing you should do is talk with your mom and dad. They are the first to give you the information you will need. Miss Miller drew one circle on the board and labelled it me. She then drew two more circles on the board. She Labelled them mom and dad.

She put two circles above mom and two circles above dad. She wrote G.Dad and G.Mom in the two circles over mom and dad.

Miss Miller gave so much information that day that Jean felt her heart and mind would just burst from happiness. She couldnt wait to get home to tell her mother everything. She couldnt wait to begin the search.

Mom, guess what I learned today? burst out Jean in an excited voice. I learned how to find out where we are from.

The next step is to ask your grand-parents their parents names.

Jean and her mother were very busy the next two months. They took the information they learned from Jeans grandparents to the State Archives on Trapelo Road in Waltham, Massachusetts. It was a very low Building which looked very impressive to Jean. The atmosphere was very hushed and quiet, just like a library.

They signed in at the front desk with the receptionist. They told him the year, state and names of Jeans grandparents. He then gave them a visitors badge and a piece of paper on which he had listed the number of the books that they should look in to find out the census information.

Their first stop was to look into the Federal population Census Records. The records on file were the years from 1790 1930.

Next, they used the microfilm readers. The file they pulled out to view was from South Carolinas 1880 Census.