Writing a family history book is a daunting task, one that many family historians hope to undertake someday. Reading how others tell their ancestors’ stories can give us ideas. In Buried Secrets: Looking for Frank and Ida, author Anne Hanson takes us along on her research quest. In the book, we learn how Anne discovered a huge secret about her paternal grandparents and the exhaustive research it took to uncover the truth.

We’re reading Buried Secrets: Looking for Frank and Ida as our spring selection for the FamilyLocket Bookclub in Goodreads.  In the front matter, we read:

This is a work of nonfiction. All the research and events presented via the first-person narrative are real. In portraying experiences that occurred many years ago, I have depicted the original as faithfully as memory allows. In some cases, I have condensed scenes and paraphrased conversations.

This book also contains imagined recreations of scenes that occurred, but whose exact details are unknown, as well as scenes based on fact, but with details that are the product of my imagination.

Many of the chapters begin with these scenes and are clearly labeled, “Imagining the past.” It’s fascinating to put ourselves in our ancestors’ shoes and consider their words and actions based on photographs, records, interviews, context, and other sources. Read the Prologue on the author’s website to get a feel for these scenes: September 1955 (Imagining the past)

Buried Secrets includes photos from the family collection that help us visualize the family members. One of those photos provided the clue that led the author to discover Frank and Ida’s secret. Her research journey took her to libraries, archives, courthouses, cemeteries, online collections, and more. Weaving her story of exploration with Frank and Ida’s story offers an interesting take on how to write our family stories.

I reached out to the author, and Anne graciously answered some questions that will give you more insight into her quest.

Author’s Interview

How did you get started in family history? Do you remember an initial “spark” or incident that inspired you? Did you have any experiences as a child/teen in school or at home that helped you be more inclined toward family history?

I got started in family history because of my dad. He grew up in Akron, Ohio, during the 1930s and 1940s, and his parents, Frank and Ida, were always extremely secretive about their past. They claimed they grew up in Brooklyn, New York, but they refused to share even the simplest of details about their families, such as, for example, their parents’ names. My dad always wondered about his inexplicably missing family tree and his parents’ secrecy. As soon as my sisters and I were old enough, in the late 1970s, he began asking my sisters and me to research his family history. However, for the next two decades, we could not uncover a single fact about either of my grandparents’ family histories. The more I failed to uncover their family histories, the more determined I became to keep on searching and discover the truth.

Why do you do genealogy? Why do you think it’s important?

I got hooked on genealogy at the age of 20, when I was in college. Then and now, I love digging through primary sources and immersing myself in old documents, using fragments of evidence to piece together puzzles from the past. I love bringing the histories of ordinary people to life and understanding what they did in the social, cultural, political, and economic contexts of their time. I think it is important to focus on understanding the lives of everyday people, trying to understand not only what they do but why they do it. All trends, all social movements and changes ultimately begin with people who make decisions that collectively create history.

What has been the most difficult part of your genealogical journey?

By far the most difficult part of my journey was scaling the brick wall that my grandparents had built to hide their true past.  Once I broke through, however, information became far more accessible.  But it was getting over that first hurdle that took 95 percent of the work.

What is the most rewarding part of researching your family’s history?

Discovering the truth of my grandparents’ secret past was enormously rewarding. I also loved the family history interviews and conversations I did with my dad. Through countless family history conversations, I traveled with him into his past and shared his memories, so they became part of my life, too. In the year 2000, he lost the two brothers to whom he was closest, who shared his memories, but through his stories, I shared his memories too, so he was no longer alone.

 What are your research interests?

I am interested in the lives of ordinary people in the US, UK, and Sweden in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries.

What is your favorite way to share genealogy and family history with others?

Since my book Buried Secrets: Looking for Frank and Ida came out in the fall of 2022, I have been having a wonderful time sharing my research and writing journey through talks on my book, as well as interviews and podcasts.

 If you had all the time in the world to spend on family history, what would you do?

For my next project, I would love to track down my great-uncle Willard, who disappeared around 1920 and was never heard from again. Family rumor has it that he went to Germany. I would love to discover the truth and figure out what happened in the rest of his life.

What’s the best discovery you’ve made about your family?

I discovered that my grandparents were not who they said they were, and their past was not what they said it was.

Who is your most interesting ancestor?

My grandmother, Ida. She was highly intelligent, domineering, infuriating, compassionate, and contradictory. She was also an unusual woman for her time, in that when she was in her 50s, driven by interest rather than economic need, she went back to school to become a licensed practical nurse. She loved being a nurse and excelled at it. She derived particular satisfaction from making very sick patients comfortable and putting them at ease. I know all of this because she wrote my dad letters at least once a week during the 1950s, and I have those letters now. I unfortunately have no memory of my grandmother, as she died when I was two. I would love to be able to speak with her.

How do you preserve your family history?

I hope I have preserved my family history through my book. Organizing all of my genealogy files, papers, and photographs, however, is very much an ongoing work in progress.

Thanks, Anne, for sharing!