re: #229 HappyWarrior

I had this silly idea to write fictional but trying to be historically accurate based off my research little stories into the lives of my ancestors. Like I wonder things what my ancestor was doing on a given day like the declaration of war in WWI or even just a random day when they were my age. Genealogical research is much more enjoyable and I’m sure Freetoken and any other lizard who has done this will back me up here but it’s much more enjoyable when you see your ancestors as people rather than just numbers and a point of relation.

I know I discovered some things I’d never known - like my Great Grandmother Annie May Dignal Smith’s family had lived in the Allegheny County Home for the poor in 1870. Also that year, my 3-greats Grandmother Jane Smith died in Glencoe Minnesota, having moved there with her daughter Verlinda and her husband.

And then I discovered that there is a trove of Pittsburgh City Directories from the last half of the 19th Century, in which I found my ancestors, and I spent hours on Google Street View virtually wandering the streets of the South Side, and discovering that at one point, the Dignals lived in a half of the narrowest duplex I’ve ever seen.