Week 3

The theme for Week 3 is "Out of Place." Have you ever found an ancestor in an unexpected location? What about finding a record someplace that surprised you? Or what about that one great-great-uncle who moved out West when everyone else in the family stayed put? This is a good week to write about them.

"Out of Place" has to be my intro to genealogy story. My husband and I had just moved from Cincinnati to the small town of Port Huron, Michigan. I was not working at the time and decided that those Ancestry.com ads were too tempting. What I knew about my family at the time was we were from down south - Florida, Georgia and Alabama. I knew my Great Great Grandpa on my dad's side was Percy Archibald and his parents were Walter Scott and Olivia Archibald. So that is the information I put into the ancestry search. The first result that appeared was the 1870 census showing that Percy Archibald, then 3 years old was living in a house with his parents and siblings - the kicker was that he was Out of Place - He wasn't in Georgia, he was in Port Huron, Michigan where I had just moved to!

The Archibald family came to Port Huron in 1869-1870 and was only here for 3 years before they relocated to Alpena, then followed shortly thereafter to Essex, Ontario, and finally down south to Georgia and Florida.

Port Huron's population in 1870 was less than 6000 and today its less than 29000. This coincidence is too eerie. I knew I found my calling.