Several Years ago I invested in a book titled To Our Children's Children- Preserving Family Histories for Generations to Come, by Bob Greene and DG Fulford. I saw them being interviewed on Oprah and liked the concept so much that I forked over more than $20 to buy the book. Now I realize that may not seem like a lot, but back then it pretty well used up my free money for the two week pay period. I remember sitting down at the computer, inserting my floppy disc- yes it was that long ago...and typing away at some answers. I believe I got to question number 27 before giving up on the project. Well I am back at this time armed with a blog and Mac and more importantly nothing significant to blog about. For Christmas this year Steve had my previous blog posts printed and bound and that's when it hit me that I should revisit the family history project again. I plan on spending the year answering selected questions from the book in my blog and then having them all printed and bound. Voila! A family history to give to Zach and his children. So with no further ado...
Chapter One
Facts
1. What is your name?
My Name is Kellie Ann Furney Wachter, well legally its Kellie Ann Wachter, but I started adding the Furney back in recent years. I have no beef with taking my husband's name, but I do think for posterity's sake we women should at least be sure to document our maiden names if for no other reason than to help some poor soul several generations from now who is trying to figure out just who we were and to whom we belonged. ( Is that the correct usage for whom? I don't know, feels right, but that doesn't mean much in the big scheme of things, come to think of it, neither does the correct usage of who and whom...) Every genealogical brick wall I have hit is a female ancestor who's premarital state is a mystery. I hope to leave more breadcrumbs to mark my trail than they did.
I have always liked my name. It's common enough not to be thought unusual, pretentious or absurd yet you don't find Kellies hanging around on every street corner either. I think I was just about the only Kellie in my age group at school. I like that it's Irish, I know I have some Irish ancestry, so it is appropriate and it goes with my freckles too. I looked up what it means in Gaelic and the definition I got was that it means Battle Maiden...Now on first flush that seems a little inappropriate considering that I live in fear most of the time. Granted it's fear of the stupid and trivial, the real scary stuff throws you straight into shock so fear never has a chance to get much of a toe hold there. Fears born of anxiety are the monsters I face. My default setting is "worst case scenario" so I am usually working up a good panic over most anything that has the remote possibility of spinning out of my control. I have gotten better over the years at keeping things in perspective and have embraced for the most part that things can go wonderfully right just as easily as horribly wrong...so I am less fearful now than I have been. But the fear that makes me think my name is not suited to me is precisely why it is. I have rushed headlong into the battles of my life with more courage than anyone who has not dealt with anxiety will ever know. Of course you could also say that my name might mean I like to fight, which I do, a little, but only if I think I can win.
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