Lisa’s Next Gen.
Using Genealogical Records and Oral History Techniques
Trigger Warning: Family Violence, Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse, Mental Abuse, Incest, Childhood Abuse, Sexual Assault, Substance Use and Abuse. Please do not continue if any of the above topics trigger you.
Methodology: Due to Lisa Wright being of a newer generation and alive and well, I relied mostly on her testimony to piece together her life. She was not born until 1963, so no census data was available. I was able to find some indexed information that will be discussed later. A search on Newspapers.com didn’t yield any results. With her permission, I looked through her Facebook, and found some images that could be used on the YouTube platform. Additionally, I conducted a general search for her name on google.
Trauma
Trauma can cause devastating repercussions for a person. Even secondhand trauma can trigger trauma responses. A child who has been forced to deal with multiple abuses harms that individual’s ability to grow and adapt emotionally and mentally. Physically, such abuse, has been shown to biologically impede physiological systems and hamper proper brain development.
This Blog
This blog is going to be slightly different than previous blogs as there will be two podcasts dedicated to my mother, Lisa and the impact of trauma on her life. In this blog, I will be homing in on the methodologies used. Podcasts 11 & 12 will focus on her story and generational trauma.
Casual Discussions
I speak to my mother, Lisa Wright, who is the focus of this blog and most recent podcasts, approximately once a week. We have a good, open relationship, and my mother has been closely following the podcast about tracing generational trauma since its inception. She provided much of the information about the topic, along with her brothers, Rick and Tony. Nobody, even a family member, can know everything about another person, and this became apparent early in the process. I discovered stories that I had never heard before, which allowed me to create a more accurate picture of some of the facts that I had been wrong about or were unclear.
The first time I approached my mother with questions was to ask her if she knew anything about her grandfather Vasper. Specifically, I asked if she had heard of a daughter named Iris Wright. She had not. Although she knew that her father had two brothers, she was not aware of a sister. This made the mystery all the more interesting.
I acquired most of her vital information from casual conversations we had over the years about her experiences in life. I, however, did not have a definitive timeline of where she lived and what schools she went to. I conducted research on Ancestry.com and was able to access records, mostly in the form of indexes. The California Birth Index, 1905 – 1995 listed her as being born as Lisa C Wright on 6 October 1963 in Los Angeles, California to a mother with the maiden name Duncan. All of this information reinforced what I knew about my mother.
My mother always shared that she was born in Los Angeles, California, but she didn't remember living there as her family moved to the Benton Harbor area of Michigan when she was quite young. Since she was born in 1963, there is no available census information. However, Ancestry has a number of directories and has uploaded Texas marriage and divorce records. To begin my research, I started with a broad search that included Michigan, Illinois, and Texas, as she lived in these states for the longest period. One of the first records to pop up was from the Texas Divorce Index, 1968 – 2011. Since I am not great at memorizing dates, I found this record helpful in filling in some of the timeline of her life through genealogical research. Although I couldn't remember when her official divorce occurred, the divorce index record allowed me to place her legal divorce on the timeline. However, there was a time of separation before the legal divorce, and I would still need my mother's recollection to understand what happened during that period. How long was the separation? Was there a feeling of permanence before the signing of the court documents? This record also gave me the exact date of my parents' marriage. Having seen this date before, I realized that my conception may have been the cause of their union. My suspicion was confirmed by my mother, and basic math also supported my conclusion.
Other records that can be helpful for individuals born post 1950 (and before) are Public Record Indexes that have residence information. While I try to find every record for an ancestor, I have at times picked a select few of the Public Record Directories and Indexes as I rarely have a need to understand a person’s yearly movements and such information can become more cumbersome than helpful. Here are a few snapshots of record information for my mom. Since I resided with my mother at both of these locations for years growing up, I know the information is accurate.
I redacted some of this personal information as it still relates to her life. Ancestry houses a digital index with more than 330 million public records taken from such sources as telephone directories, Marketing lists, Postal Change of Address Forms, Public Record Fillings, Directory Assistance Records, and Property and Land Records. The U.S. Index to Public Records, 1994 – 2019 is a great resource if somebody is looking for more recent information [6]. The Record below is what has been inputted for my mother. You can see her residence locations, how long she was at each location, and her year of birth.
Family Search
I conducted two searches on Family Search. The first search was Lisa Wright and the geographical focus was on Michigan. No pertinent matches were found. I then searched Lisa Wright and Texas and found a number of results that I then narrowed down by including the “C” for her middle name. While there were over 90,000 results, the first page of results included two applicable records.
Oral History
I am lucky to have had early exposure to an Oral History Archive in a county museum in my twenties, where I got a genuine feel for the types of open-ended questions that can be asked to garner more detailed responses from interviewees. Oral History is defined as
Oral history is a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events. Oral history is both the oldest type of historical inquiry, predating the written word, and one of the most modern, initiated with tape recorders in the 1940s and now using 21st-century digital technologies [9].
I am skilled in conducting both online and onsite research but interviewing people was not something that came naturally to me. In high school, I was a part of the Police Explorers program and excelled at everything except hostage negotiation. I struggled with knowing what questions to ask and what to say. However, over the years, I have developed my interviewing methods. Anyone can conduct an interview, but not everyone can extract valuable information from the interviewee. It is crucial to have a list of prepared questions to control the interview, but it is equally important to be able to read the person you are interviewing and to redirect the conversation if necessary to gather relevant information. This is a learned skill that takes practice to master. Several websites provide possible questions to ask and videos that explain the art of interviewing.
The first part of my podcast with my mother Lisa will be available on most platforms by April 9, 2024, with the second part following two weeks later. In my next blog post, I will be discussing how to create a Genogram, which can be a helpful tool in your research.
Bibliography
[1] Ancestry.com, California Birth Index, 1905-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005, Name: Lisa C. Wright, Birthdate: 6 Oct 1963, Birth County: Los Angeles.
[2] Ancestry.com, Texas, U.S., Divorce Index, 1968-2015 [database on-line], Name: Lisa Carol Wright, Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.
[3] Ancestry.com, Texas, U.S., Marriage Index, 1824-2019 [database on-line], Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.
[4] Ancestry.com. U.S., Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 1 [database on-line]. Name: Lisa McKinley, Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
[5] Ancestry.com. U.S., Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 2 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010
[6] Ancestry.com. U.S., Index to Public Records, 1994-2019 [database on-line]. Name: Lisa McKinley, Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2020. Original data: Voter Registration Lists, Public Record Filings, Historical Residential Records, and Other Household Database Listings
[7] Ancestry.com, U.S., Index to Public Records, 1994-2019, [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2020.
[8] "Records Search Results," records, Family Search (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 3 March 2024), search return for Lisa C. Wright, Texas, 1963.
[9] “Oral History: Defined.” Oral History Association, [online] Waco, TX, 5 December 2023 (https://oralhistory.org/about/do-oral-history/: Accessed 4 April 2024).
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