Generations See What Their 150 Year Old Relatives Look Like For The First Time

- I have no idea who it is and why I'm upset about it. - Oh! (gasps) What? - I feel like my roots have spread and I am getting closer to the past. ♪ (rock intro) ♪ - (FBE) Well, this

time

of

year

tends to bring people together and it usually means a lot of family gatherings. - Mm-hmm. -(FBE) So today we've partnered with Ancestry to take you on a special journey through his family history. - Oh my God, I'm going to cry. (laughs) You better get me tissues. - Okay, so the patrilineage of my family tree is kind of missing.

There are many things in my story that I don't know. - (FBE) So our friends at Ancestry were able to find some photos of your ancestors that you may have never seen before. - Hey, okay, sick! - Oh my god, I can't wait. - (FBE) Check it out. - Who is that? - (FBE) This is your maternal great-great-grandfather. - Are you kidding me? - (FBE) Floyd Morgan. - Oh my God. That's probably his best Sunday. - That just

look

s like an old photo, like I didn't know they were related to me, I'd just say yeah, it definitely belongs in an old museum, like a gold rush museum. -(FBE) This is your great-great-grandfather, George Kamphaus, with his parents Wilhelm and Sophia. - So great-great-grandfather, he says, me, my parents, my grandparents, great-great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, that's this guy, sixth, and then that means those are my great-great-grandfathers. - Who is that? (laughs) - (FBE) So this is your maternal great-grandfather.

Conklin Sandidge. - Oh my God! This will bring a lot of life and happiness to our family gatherings, because we talk about these names, but they are just names. We do not have photos to accompany them. -I have no idea who he is and why I'm upset about it. - (FBE) What do you think it is that excites you so much about something as simple as a photo? - Because it is also something as complex as a photo. - (FBE) So this is a photo of your paternal great-great-grandfather, Amado Gómez. He was a farmer, born in Hidalgo, Mexico in 1860. -I know that many of my family were migrant farm workers.

This is crazy. - (FBE) Now here is the same image, but as you will see, it has now been altered. - That's crazy. I always talked to my ancestors. That's a big part of

what

I do to guide myself, to give myself strength, to do things, and I'm seeing one of them. And it's not like this ambiguous cloud in my head. It has a face. There was a distancing, so I can't easily go and talk to people and get information. That adds to this overwhelming feeling of, oh my God, I'm seeing part of my lineage. It's super special. - (FBE) So today we were able to take things a little further when it comes to your family history. - Well. - (FBE) Would you like to see

what

else Ancestry researchers were able to discover for you today? - Absolutely. - Of course, I am very happy to cry about this. - (FBE) This is a US federal census from 1870. - Oh!

Sophia, George, those were the grandparents, the great-great-grandparents. - (FBE) I'm going to direct your attention to this column, here they are. - Russia? - (FBE) Prussia. - Prussia! My great-great-grandparents are Prussian and they are

first

generation, and that means Georgie was born in Iowa, so she is

first

generation American. It's like this puzzle piece in my head just (spits), you know, falls into place. - What is this certificate? Is it a marriage certificate in Spanish? - (FBE) Do you notice any names here? - Ah, I see Rosario. That's the name of my mom's father. And how I ended up with this is crazy, I don't even know.

I

look

ed at my birth certificate, my father is not the father that is there. But I wanted to keep it, it was very important that I keep it, so when I got married, I made sure it had hyphens. - (FBE) So this is a federal census that includes your great-grandfather, Robert Brown. This is your father's grandfather. - Oh, my father's grandfather. - (FBE) Can you find his profession here? - It looks like something from school. School teacher! (gasps) Oh my gosh, my family will be crazy for me to share these facts about them. - (FBE) Well, now let's go a little deeper. - Oh Lord! - Oh my God.

Oh, is this the family tree? George Hardin, Kittie Moore, César Brown, Sallie Vernel. I don't know about them. - Okay, here's something a little crazy, right? So we have Catherine here, Catherine here, right? And then we skipped a generation, and then Kathy Johnson, right? And then on my dad's side, there's Katherine Lusk, right? And then my girlfriend's name is Katherine. If I have a girl, she will be called Katherine. That's all. I feel connected. You know what I mean? I feel like my roots have spread and I'm reaching into the past. - I don't know many of these names and that's sad.

My mom was diagnosed with cancer and people started coming up to me out of the blue, like people I didn't know, and were like, "Oh, I'm related to you this way," and I know my mom has cancer. There are a lot of holes in her story, so this is really important, because it's something I can share with her. (whispers) I never cry. But it's okay, it's all good. - Oh! (gasps) What? I don't know if I've ever heard the name Ellerson. Viola Sanders, that's my grandmother, and a saint. Do you have Robert Sanders and Margaret Sanders, William Lambert and Dicy? - (FBE) Here's a little more from Morgan's side. - Oh my!

Oh my God! And there's Floyd Morgan, wow! That's the Morgan you showed me. My mom has no idea who her parents are. No idea, they just never talked about those things. - (FBE) We have another surprise for you. - Well. - Oh my God. - What the hell is this? (Ruby laughs) - (FBE) So, what you're holding right now... - Uh-huh. -(FBE) It is a marriage certificate for her great-great-grandparents, George Hardin and Katherine Moore. - Wow! - (FBE) They then married in 1866, as newly emancipated people in Tennessee. - Yeah! My brothers are going to be impressed! - This is the 12th US Census, the 12th! -(FBE) So this is a 1900 US census showing her great-great-grandmother, Catherine Kamphaus, who was George's daughter.

Catherine is listed in the 1900 US census as Katie and as a servant at age 15 in the household of the Gleisner family, of German descent. - (sighs) Honestly, I feel like I'm in my own story. I feel like I'm watching a movie and discovering these plot twists over and over again. Wow! - I, Amado Gómez, emigrated to the United States of America from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico in July 1882, on the skiff. Is that how you pronounce that? - (FBE) A skiff. - What is a skiff? Don't know. - (FBE) It's a small ship. -There is literally a line that says "I am", as if he has to tell you that he is not an anarchist, which is kind of punk rock. -(FBE) Putting herself in his place, and thinking about his trip, she came here on a boat.

What do you think that must have been like? - Scary and scary! If someone said "hey, why don't you take the bus?" I would probably piss myself and complain about it, and he got on a little boat and went to a different country. That takes guts. -(FBE) This is an application detailing his great-great-grandfather's service in the Revolutionary War. - Holy Cow. Then my grandmother was born on the ranch, and in 1976, the ranch house burned down. All these things she probably had were gone. Missing! And so what a gift it is to be able to have copies of so many things that burned in that fire.

It's just absolutely amazing. - (FBE) As we said before, this is a common theme for families especially during this

time

of

year

, so in honor of the holiday season, we're sending you home with the perfect gift to give today. - This is not the first time I give this as a gift. - (FBE) Today we're sending you home with an Ancestry gift membership, which is a six-month family history subscription to create a family tree and search historical records for yourself. - Wow! - (FBE) Along with this Ancestry DNA kit to discover your origins. - My mom will be delighted.

I will probably give this to her for Christmas and it will be one of her favorite Christmas gifts. - In fact, I made mine. I've been desperately wishing one of my brothers would do it. - So this will also be in depth, right? So this is more than just learning about the family tree. This will learn where I come from and what is in my DNA. That's crazy. - (FBE) How does it feel to know that you will be able to continue this journey and share what you have learned with your family members this holiday season? - Aside from the gift of having my mom still around, it's the best option I can think of. - Every two years we have a family meeting, and we review the family tree, so that all the youngest ones remember the names.

They will all be inside. - I can't wait to tell my mom. It always saddened him that he didn't hear from her about her side of the family, so I can't wait to call her and tell her that we now have information on her. -(FBE) We really hope she enjoyed delving into her ancestry. - Oh yeah! - (FBE) From your perspective, how important is it to understand your past and how it impacts you today? - I think that's all. If you learn from your past, what to do and what not to do, that is, you will be way ahead of the game. - That is the reason why storytelling is part of human culture, in general, and it is so that we can transfer this knowledge from generation to generation. - You discover like a door, you open it and it's a door to a room of doors.

So you have all these questions that come up more than the initial question that you had. But that's the great part. - (FBE) So finally, can you tell us what this experience has meant to you today? - Well, you know, when you can see things, when you see evidence, it makes you feel very good and you want to know more. - It has meant everything. FBE and Ancestry, I can't thank you enough for giving me something to give to my mom that I never thought was possible. - I have always really liked learning about myself and my family's past, do you know what it is like?

Mulan. Do you know where she walks into that chamber and all of her ancestors come to life as blue ghosts? That's how I feel right now! - Hello, I'm Sierra, producer here at FBE. Thank you so much to Ancestry for partnering with us on this truly special episode that helps bring families closer together this holiday season. Every family has a story and Ancestry is a gift that can help you get closer to your origins. To see how you can give your friends and family the gift of discovery with Ancestry, check out the links in the description.

Bye!