Family Tree

So I know I haven't posted for awhile, and truth be told, I don't know when I'll post again, but I just felt like sharing something.  Last week, with Nikki's help, I decided to go on Ancestry.com to look up my family history.  I have always wondered about where my family comes from and decided to do some digging to try to find out.  What I found was pretty interesting.

Now because I don't know much about my mom's side of the family and I don't really have anyone around to ask, I decided to focus on my father's side.  After just a few minutes of searching I learned my first lesson: if you don't have maiden names, it is very hard to find information on female members of your ancestry.  I did, however, find quite a bit on the men on my father's side of the family.

I traced my lineage through census records, birth and death records, WWI & WWII draft registration records, town records, literally pages and pages of stuff!  I learned that my great great great grandfather (Frans) Peter Kalis emigrated from Wurttemberg, Germany sometime in the 1800s and that he had a whopping 9 KIDS!  Sadly, I didn't find any famous ancestors, but that's okay, we Kalis' are special enough.  I wish I could share my entire family tree with you, but unfortunately it's quite large and would never fit on the blog.  Oh well, maybe if we're hanging out I can show it to you sometime, for now you'll just have to settle for some of the highlights.

My great grandfather, Francis Kalis' WWI Draft Registration card.

1870 U.S. Census showing my great great great grandfather, Peter Kalis.

For whatever reason, after exploring my family history, I started to think about death.  And I realized I feel kind of comforted knowing that long after I die I will continue to exist, even if it's as nothing more than a name on a census form, floating out there in cyber space or tucked away in a filing cabinet in the humid basement of an old office building.  When you think about it, it feels like a fitting way to spend eternity.