Kingston genealogist raises the dead, in a manner of speaking

If you’re thinking about delving into the family past, there’s a host of things to consider, depending on your foreparents’ countries and cultures of origin. For example, Wilcox pointed out Germans use their first and middle names interchangeably. Varying pronunciation also changes the game, depending on the tongue at play, or ear in conversation.  A name as simple as Carson was heard (and possibly recorded) as Carston, Kaston, Casson, Castle or more, requiring Wilcox to keep an open and fluid mind while researching possibilities. Plus which, she added, people were not always honest about their ages; women lied to be younger, boys lied to be older for joining the service. Convoluting factors such as scowled-upon interfaith marriages between Catholics and Protestants, interracial relationships and more also make the path to certain knowledge indirect, at best.

“I work with my hunches,” Wilcox explained. “This work is sleuth work, and putting together pieces of a puzzle. I wonder, ‘Why? Where did you go?’ when following someone.”

Wilcox also must function as a historian to piece together connections. Native Americans change their first names regularly, and though slave masters did keep reliable records of their human “inventory,” tracing ancestry through former slaves is unfortunately very challenging — especially post-Civil war.

When Wilcox comes across a humdinger, she sometimes travels to the physical towns or cities to feel it out with her hunches, and to piece it together. Sometimes she uses smaller bits like diaries, store account books, love letters or post cards — views out a window or a walk to church. Wilcox described her role as a “conduit” for the stories, often connecting with the deceased she’s pursuing on an intimate, spiritual level.

Wilcox said she read somewhere that genealogy is the first or second top-rated hobby in theUnited States, and agreed when she considered the American melting pot dilemma, far from distinctive extended family village lines. “We don’t have ties — they just know their ancestors are down the block in the cemetery.” Our yearning for ties to our past is also evidenced by the legions of Americans joining hereditary or lineage societies and the rising popularity of DNA ethnic background tests, she said. Wilcox’s clients are just about anyone curious, she said, and her price schedule is hourly to accommodate the unforeseeable.

When she’s not chasing down the marriage certificates of long-dead ghosts, she’s planning weddings, hence her trademark name “4GetMeNot”. For more information, visit 4getmenotancestry.com.