If you’ve been involved in genealogy for any length of time, you’ve made a mistake. We all have. Sometimes this are little mistakes like misspelling a name. Sometimes they are big mistakes like adopting and following the wrong John Smith. Today I’m going to talk about one of my mistakes.
I have an Aunt Sis. Sis was not her given name, but it is the name she has been called by since she was a tiny tot. This is probably because she was the second girl in the family—the little sister.
I inherited my grandmother’s photo album many years ago. I was delighted to find a photo of the most adorable little girl. She was about 3 or 4 years old and had long blonde curls, sparkling eyes, and a beautiful smile. I didn’t recognize here, so I was lucky that that back of the photo had been labeled. “Sissy”! I’d wondered a bit about the blonde curls, since Aunt Sis has dark hair. But she may have colored her hair as an adult. Besides, I had shimmering blonde hair as a child, but it has been dark for years.
A few years ago my mom and I were visiting Aunt Sis, and I took along the photo album. The women had a great time reminiscing. The told me lots of family stories and identified several of the people that I didn’t know. Then I pointed out the picture of Aunt Sis and asked how old she was at the time it was taken. They set me straight immediately. That was NOT my Aunt Sis. That was Sissy, the daughter of their father’s cousin. OOPS!
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