Do you remember Sunday supper at grandma’s house? What was for supper, how did it smell? Cooking and eating a family meal together brings out the best in families. Today in our busy lives it seems the family meal has long been forgotten.
I can not recall a whole lot about my grandparents as all four of them died either before I was born or when I was just a little kid. My Grandma Fox’s house was just a few minutes drive across town and we went there often on Sunday for supper. The smell of supper cooking and the warm inviting atmosphere is what I remember most. It was always a traditional Irish-American Food consisting of meat, potatoes and vegetables. Grandma Fox used to have a vegetable garden in her back yard. I’ve been told by my siblings that if grandma asked you if you wanted more and you said no, you’d only get a little bit more. If you asked for more, well let’s say you certainly wouldn’t leave the table hungry.
After dinner it was cleaning up the supper dishes. After the dishes were done, the cards would come out. The grown-ups would sit around the dinner table playing a game called set-back. It is also known as Pitch to some. Our family still plays set-back every time we get together.
Want to learn about your ancestor’s Sunday Supper? Ask your mom, grandma or any other older relative. Here are a few questions to ask.
- What do you remember most about Sunday’s supper at your mom or grandmas house?
- What was typically for supper?
- What recipes do you have of your mother or grandmother? Can I have a copy?
- What did you do after supper?
- Who was usually at the supper table?
- Where did everyone sit?
This Christmas when you get together to share a meal, ask these questions or some of your own. Try to ask open-ended questions where the answer can’t be a yes or no. Be sure to capture these memories on paper or even recorded.
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Do you know what sports if any your father or grandfather played in high school, college or beyond. Perhaps your mother or grandmother was the star of the basketball team or the ping pong champion of the school. With a little digging you can find out about the youthful activities that occupied your ancestors time.
The first and easiest way to find out is to ask. If your ancestor is still around ask him or her. If they are not, ask an older aunt or uncle or anyone who knew your ancestor. You might be surprised about what they know. Here are a few questions about what to ask them.
- What sports did you play when you were in high school or earlier?
- What position did you play?
- Tell me about one particular game or match that you remember playing in.
- What special awards did you earn while playing in the sport?
- Tell me about one of your teammates that you remember.
- Did you continue playing the sport in college or afterwords
You can use these or come up with some questions on your own. Try to ask them open ended questions rather than a questions which can be answered with a yes or no.
If there are no older relatives to ask, there are still resources you can look for to understand your ancestors life in school and sports. Here are some of my favorite resources to look for;
- High School Yearbook: Many of these can be found at the local historical society or library.
- College Yearbook: You can find these at the college library.
- Local Newspaper Articles: A lot of newspapers are being digitized and indexed. If your lucky your ancestor’s hometown newspaper is one of them.
- High School or College Programs: Many teams published a yearly pamphlet about their teams
Below is a small sample of what you might find.
- High School or College Newspaper: School newspapers highlighted the sports programs.
Here is another example of what you might find.
If you know of any additional resources to find out about the sports your ancestors played, please reply to this post. We would love to hear about them.
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Newspaper Archive Search at Genealogy Bank 
Newspaper Archive Search and NewspaperArchive.com
I was browsing through the many great genealogy blogs on Geneabloggers and came across the Irish Genealogy News blog. As the name implies, this genealogy blog focuses on Irish Genealogy. They post quite often averaging more than one blog post per day in 2012. Some of the recent blog posts I liked included;
These were just a few of the many wonderful and informative blog posts. They quite often point out new databases regarding Irish Genealogy which have come on-line.
If you have any Irish ancestors, be sure to check out this blog.
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This is a photo which was shared with me by a cousin who has since passed on. It is believed to be a bunch of Fox relatives from County Leitirm, Ireland.
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