How did I get here?

I've always been fascinated by history. I always have to know the back story of people, places and things. Recently my fascination has turned to my own family history. My family is full of characters and growing up I heard such interesting stories, I wondered if they were actually true. Like the story about my grandfather that involved a bottle of tequila, a wooden box and a wild night in Panama. My mom always stopped my grandfather short of telling that one, but there are tons more that I wanted to get to the bottom of.

So, after seeing one too many Ancestry.com commercials, I finally signed up for a membership to do my own research. The initial 14-day trial turned into a full membership with an additional fee for access to international records. Yes, its costing me money but it truly is rewarding.

My great-grandmother immigrated to America from Poland in 1913. I had always been told the story of how her mother hid her in a laundry basket as they passed through Ellis Island because she was afraid of the inoculations. I went to Ellis Island once on a field trip in 7th grade. I looked for my great-grandmother's name but couldn't find it, so I believed the story. However, through my recent research, I discovered it wasn't true. My great-grandmother was born in 1905. She was 7 years old when she made the trip to America and perhaps a little too big to be stowed in a laundry basket undetected. She is also listed among the passengers on the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, the ship that brought her to this country which means that she didn't quite slip by immigration officials. Although the laundry basket story was a good yarn that I will always remember, what is indelibly more interesting is that my great-grandmother and her family fled Eastern Europe during the turmoil of World War I. They lived in Galicia, a small province that once belonged to Poland but at that time was an annex of Austria. It was also the scene of many battles between the Russians, Austrians and Germans.

My other great-grandmother, who is also my namesake, taught in a one-room school house in Maine. Carolyn Sophronia Johnson (glad I didn't pick up the middle name) was born in 1899. Its been harder to trace her family lineage. So far, I've been able to locate her parents, Virgil and Sophronia Johnson, but that's where the trail goes cold. One would think I'd have an easier time tracing family roots on the same continent, but apparently records from Fryeburg, Maine are just as elusive as those from Galicia. However, the search goes on.

My last name Freer, which means "descendant of the Friar," is English. In fact, my great-great-great-grandfather Robert Freer is buried in a cemetery in Kibworth Beauchamp, a village of Leicestershire, England. Its my hope one day to go to a local pub in that small village, say my last name is Freer and have some old man buy me a drink because he knows my "family."

Whether I travel to the places where my relatives lived or I stay at home on my computer, I still have a great story. I feel like I've found another piece of who I really am, just by finding out where I came from.