Laura Hedgecock | Sharing Stories Big and Small

Stories in Our Roots

Laura Hedgecock | Sharing Stories Big and Small

Episode 16 • 29:44

SPEAKERS

Heather Murphy, Laura Hedgecock

Stories in Our Roots  00:03

Welcome to the Stories in Our Roots podcast. I'm your host Heather Murphy. In this podcast, we dive deep into how knowing the stories of our ancestors can make a difference in our lives today, discovering our family history is more than a hobby. It is a way to connect deeply with ourselves, those we love, and the world around us.

Heather Murphy  00:26

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Stories in Our Roots. Thank you so much for joining me today. Before we start, I'd like to remind you that I would love to have more people like you as guests on my show. So if you have a story that you'd like to share about how family history has impacted you, what a difference it has made in your life and share some of those favorite family stories that you have, please go to storiesinourroots.com and fill out the form and I will get in touch with you.

Heather Murphy  00:59

Today I talk with Laura Hedgecock Laura's interest in her family largely comes from a treasure chest of memories passed down from her grandmother. Laura reminds us that everyone has a story big or small, and that they should be remembered. Here is my interview with Laura Hedgecock.

Heather Murphy  01:19

I am really happy to be here today with Laura and to hear her story about how family history has impacted her life. Laura, could you start by introducing yourself.

Laura Hedgecock  01:31

My name is Laura Hitchcock. I live in Michigan in the Detroit Metro area. And I'm an author and a speaker. And I'm passionate about genealogy and especially the storytelling side of it. I'm really love to help people either tell their individual stories, whether it be memoir are tell the family stories.

Heather Murphy  01:56

Can you tell us how you started becoming interested in learning about your family's history?

Laura Hedgecock  02:02

That's the key question is when I got really interested because I grew up with it kind of around me, an aunt on my maternal side, researched our family's history for decades before the internet came around and made it convenient. And we had a little booklets that she'd put together and it was over the mantel. And I remember reading it but I thought Oh, that's cool that and does that was it really something that I do for myself. I've family inherited my maternal grandmother's what she calls her treasure chest of memories. And what it was was my, we called her Grandma Crimes. Her name was Hazel. She wrote in secret all through her life. She had this recycled wire bound notebook. It was like a diary that she wrote in. And she wrote about family stories, who was who in the family she wrote about life on the farm, raising her kids, she even threw recipes in there.

Laura Hedgecock  03:05

Again, because she died about the time I graduated from college. I thought it was cool. But I didn't understand how cool until later in my life. And it was later in my life. As I went through all these things where I had four, I got married, and I had kids. And I lost my parents that my grandmother's treasure chest of memories gave me something to hang on to. So I no longer had my mom, but I had her memories of raising my mom, I connected with her Woman to Woman something we really you don't really do when you're 20 you're you're a kid, and that's grandma kind of in quotes doing grandma's things. And I connected to her as a mother. I connected to her as someone who suffered through grief. So that really made a huge impact on me. And that's why I was became really interested in the storytelling side.

Laura Hedgecock  04:09

But my other grandmother, my paternal grandmother was just the opposite. So you would say the family tree was really more like tangled roots on that side of the family are invisible roots. Her story was that when she was six, her mother died. And it's interesting both my grandmother's lost their mother very young. But when her mother died, her father elected not to raise her which was not uncommon around the turn of the 20th century. So she said she could barely even remember his last name. So she had zero family stories. Nothing. It was just a void there.

Laura Hedgecock  04:48

About 2006 my aunt who on my maternal side who did all the history, the family history, she wrote me an email and said I found a census 1920 census with your grandma and it with her family. And I said, No, you didn't. She was in an orphanage. She's like, No, I did. And so I drove up to the library to look at ancestry.com, you know, the library edition because I wasn't into things enough to have my own subscription. And there it was, there was my grandma living with her father, and her stepmother. So I did a lot more research in a very short amount of time, I met cousins that my dad never had the privilege of knowing that I found through research, it turns out, it was all a lot. There was never an orphanage, she was never given up for adoption, she was not farmed out to someone else in the family for anything longer than a week or two. Because they, they were all farmers. So some of that may have happened. That's what really fascinated me about the whole picture of it, because you have the records and the facts, and you kind of juxtaposed against family traditions and outright lies. And so it's like a big puzzle. It's a mystery, finding out what really happened, trying to figure out why it happened, and connecting with people, because the more I tried to find out why my paternal grandmother lied, the more I'm connected to her, the more I've looked into the context of what her life was, like, trying to understand things. That's how I came to be just completely hooked on not just telling stories, but the whole picture and doing a lot of research.

Heather Murphy  06:41

So you mentioned knowing those stories kind of connected you to your ancestors, what was it about those stories to your grandmother that really made that connection stronger?

Laura Hedgecock  06:53

Well, for instance, my grandmother tells one story where it gets complicated. So she was raised by who I like to think of as an evil stepmother. And about at 12 years old, her father and her stepmother took her to see her grandparents and never came back for her. So she was kind of abandoned the family and that was in Lunenburg, County, Virginia, the family was super poor. So whoever had enough food to feed one more mouth, our space and a bed not like an extra bed, but space and a bed took care of her. And that extended family loved her whole, because she could have turned out to be this bitter, resentful woman. But instead, all this love from all these different people in the family and all her memories of the wonderful things they did with her and taught her. They kind of rescued her. That is so inspirational to know, not just that someone could make it through adversity, but that this whole extended family was her advocate, they were pulling for her with very little means to know how to do that. They didn't have counselors or psychologists or anything they just, it was just love.

Laura Hedgecock  08:18

One story she talks about is how her grandpa and her were in the forest. And they discovered a big buck that was stuck between two saplings. His rack was holding him in. And they'd been there evidently for a while. And she talks about how her grandpa told her to go fill a hat with water to give him something to drink, which they did. And then how he took off his suspenders and kind of wrapped him around the Bucks rack to help them get loose. And then how they let him go. And her grandfather was an injured veteran, an old injured veteran from the Civil War, they had holes in their roof, the stairs on the porch were broken. And that rack and that meat would have been a lot worth a lot of money. But he wanted to let this beautiful beasts go. everybody in my family, our animal nuts, so you can't help but wonder, okay, did we come by that? Honestly, were we all just going to be animal nuts back yet three or four generations back? Or has it always just been taught in the family, this love for animals? Those are the kind of things that really connect you

Heather Murphy  09:36

Learning about your grandmother, that she had essentially lied about where she came from, how did your... Was she still alive when you discovered this information?

Laura Hedgecock  09:47

No, she was gone. And both of my parents had already passed away as well.

Heather Murphy  09:53

How did you process that, learning that your grandmother had lied to you about where she came from?

Laura Hedgecock  10:00

I think I processed it in stages, I think the first stage was, I was so bereft for my father, because he was raised as an only child, she had 11, count them 11 siblings. So five full and six, half. And all of those cousins were raised within 90 minutes of where he grew up, and some of them much closer. And so I got to meet a couple of his cousins over the internet. And one of them turned out to be a family history researcher. But he never had that chance. And so I was really, I almost grieved about what what was denied to him. That was the first step. But then the more I looked into it, and the more I looked at her mental health, and later years, some of the things she said, some of the things the family all, the family said that once she left home, nobody talked about jetty, it was just not to be talked about. So I think there was some kind of precipitating event, then you start saying, okay, she was probably a victim, too. She probably had her reasons. And you really can't go back. Or I can't really go back to the 1920s. And second guess her decisions, even though I don't know exactly what they were. So you kind of come to this place up. Even though I don't have full understanding, you come to this place of understanding versus judging.

Heather Murphy  11:37

I think that's a really good point, because it is so easy to judge our ancestors when we don't have that full story.

Laura Hedgecock  11:45

Yes. And especially mean when the more you find out about both my grandmother's were born right around the turn of the 20th century. So they were very young, when women even earned the right to vote. The rights of women were so questionable, even if they were legal at that time, Old habits die hard, who knows how people would have created them, etc.

Heather Murphy  12:10

So how has learning these stories impacted your extended family as you've shared what you've learned with them?

Laura Hedgecock  12:18

Well, my on my father's side, it's just my sister and I because he was an only child. So in our parents were killed in an automobile accident. Between her and I, there's a lot more understanding of it, because the grandma was not always in the best of mental health. And she had a great amount of favoritism towards my sister. And didn't seem to like me. And I think it helped us both to realize that it was not something either one of us had made happen. It was just in her past, and kind of made her more interested in our family history, or going back beyond my grandmother to see who else was in the family tree and understand those things. Although she's a little bit like I was with my aunt, and she's happy for me to do the research and let her know what I find.

Heather Murphy  13:10

What other stories further back in your family history past your grandparents have touched you in ways that have been significant in your life? Have there been different periods where different stories have meant something to you?

Laura Hedgecock  13:24

Yes, there's been a lot because some, some lines of the family have been well researched throughout time. And we have one ancestor, who my one son likes to call the calls of us not being rich, who was serving with Cromwell and England. And he parted ways with Cromwell, and he actually ended up in prison in the Tower of London before he was transported, we think to Bermuda, and his son escaped to the new world. And so that touched me in and there's others where people stood up for what they believed, when it was not at all easy to do that. So those stories touch me, and they kind of give me a little inspiration. But on the other hand, I believe very, very strongly, we can't ride on the coattails of our ancestors achievements, we have to go out in our own lives and live our lives, but still, they inspire us.

Stories in Our Roots  14:28

This episode is brought to you by my premium service Stories in Your Roots. Many people wander the internet hoping to come across information that will tell their family story. And while technology has made records more accessible than ever, wandering the internet will not provide the answers you are looking for. You need to know what questions to ask where to look for the answers and what to do with the information once you find it. To learn more about how you can have a family history coach help you maximize your discoveries go to That's heathermurphygenealogy.com/coaching. That's heathermurphygenealogy.com/coaching on the half of the family where you're and did all of the research.

Heather Murphy  15:13

How do you connect with those ancestors, when somebody already found out about them did the research?

Laura Hedgecock  15:20

One of the best ways is to go to the places where they lived and walk the path, my son and I went in 2015 to England. And we went to one of these great big family, I call it a mansion. It was a family home. And we walked around the grounds, unfortunately, the tours were closed. And it was very interesting, because we kind of got this feeling that your ancestors might have just thought he and I were riffraff. I mean, that was back in a time when they rebuilt their home because Queen Elizabeth wanted to come visit and it wasn't quite up to snuff. So they rebuilt the home and had servants out the wazoo, and we thought, wonder what they would think of us? And what would they think about all of us that, you know, went to the quote, unquote, new world, and this country, so you don't really connect, connect, but it is kind of interesting to walk into those, walk those ancestral paths and roads, and try to envision what people were like,

Heather Murphy  16:29

Have you built on what your aunt did? Or did you just say, that's done? I'll just read what she did.

Laura Hedgecock  16:35

No, I've built on it. In fact, my grandmother's father, the one that abandoned her, it took a while for my aunt to kind of see that, oh, Laura can research too because he wrote on the marriage certificate, he wrote that he was born in New Bedford, CN. And so she always believed he came from Connecticut. And I wrote to the state of Connecticut, and I said, is that was there ever a New Bedford in Connecticut? They're like, no, there never was. And the last name was Savoy, which is kind of French Canadian. So I went to an expert in French Canadian records. And I said, I've never found this place called New Bedford. Is it possible that was in Quebec, and they started explaining how in that region, names of towns changed a lot, because these municipalities were incorporated. And yes, there was the New Bedford that existed. And it also, it was a place very close to my grandmother had written in her treasure chest to memories that her father came from a place called Three Rivers. And there is a in front of Three Rivers, right close to New Bedford. So I felt really proud of myself that I could do out to it and and find one little fat that she hasn't hadn't found, but she was a great researcher. But more records become available all the time. And unfortunately, my aunt Anne died about five years ago. So yes, so now I'm kind of the one that carries the torch for filling out the stories and finding the other people left in our family tree that we don't yet know about.

Heather Murphy  18:21

How do you share what you've learned with your cousins and your extended family?

Laura Hedgecock  18:27

Well, I have a blog, I and I do some of that. But usually it's I will send them little messages and say, Look at what I found. Here's this record, the school and things like that. They all have access to my online trees, they can look at things get it's constantly growing. And even for my husband's family, I do the same thing when I run across, even if it's something they knew, but to see the record of it. Here's such as set to record where he where grandpa was at such and such place. They love seeing the original records, even though it's no it's not new information.

Heather Murphy  19:06

That's a good point. It's a lot different seeing data on a pedigree chart compared to looking at a document.

Laura Hedgecock  19:13

Right, right. It really is.

Heather Murphy  19:18

Now, something that came up in an interview I did before is how sometimes our family history that we pass down isn't really balanced between our sides and our spouses sides or the family history that we got from our parents has been imbalanced. Have you experienced that in your family?

Laura Hedgecock  19:38

Yes, my maiden name is Wilkinson. The Wilkinson side. I am stuck at 1803. So that's a big imbalance. My husband's family I have a lot of information once they got to the US. One of the things that made it easy is these people were like they took the Pioneer thing seriously, like We're not going to come to America and stay in one place like Laura's family. No, we're going to move from state to state to stay, we're going to help found towns and help do missionary stuff with the Seventh Day Adventist Church. And so it's fine to look at some of their stuff because they take you from place to place to place. So I think it's kind of balanced between you know, him and I, because I do think so that my kids will have something about both sides of their history.

Heather Murphy  20:31

You do try to make sure that your kids have stories from both sides?

Laura Hedgecock  20:35

Yes, I do. And my husband's father, he loved to tell stories. So we've written tons of those down. Yeah, we were just recently talking my father in law was a civilian engineer for Westinghouse in Pennsylvania. And he worked out in the laboratory for naval nuclear reactors to run naval ships, submarines. And my son just recently got a job. He's an engineer. He's working with the Navy as a civil engineer. And so I told him, I said, you know, your, your grandpa had some patents when he worked with the Navy. And so I call it the first time my son embarked on family history research, because he started doing patent searches. And that counts in my book, that's family history research.

Heather Murphy  21:28

Absolutely.

Laura Hedgecock  21:29

It's kind of cool to see. I don't want to call them echoes but just that they have kind of following in their ancestors footsteps in one way or another. And you can't help but think that would make his grandpa and his great grandpa proud.

Heather Murphy  21:44

Yeah, we recently found something similar in my family, where my son, he's 12. And he's really, really interested in space, aeronautics, and all of that type of thing. And it turns out that my husband's grandfather was an engineer that worked on projects related to the moon landing.

Laura Hedgecock  22:04

Oh, that is so cool.

Heather Murphy  22:06

Yeah. And so just this little piece that we didn't know. And it echoes just like you were saying, two generations later, someone has the same interest. And it's so interesting, because that's so specific, just like your son, with Navy engineering, like that is so specific. And yet you see it happen more than once in the family.

Laura Hedgecock  22:25

Yeah. Boy, that was getting long enough ago that things can be declassified, that you can find more details on what he did.

Heather Murphy  22:34

Yeah. And we talked to cousins, and they had employment records from the different companies that he worked for, and what projects he works for. And some of the employment records told exactly what component he was working on. So it's been neat to see that.

Laura Hedgecock  22:54

Yeah, that is so cool. Yeah, so and that's really cool for the kids to to have a connection, when it's not, okay, we're gonna sit down and do research, when it can be, oh, so your grandpa and your great grandpa, like doing some of the same things you like doing.

Heather Murphy  23:11

Right. And I think that's why it's kind of nice to try to make sure we research and get to know a multiple ancestors, because different ones of our children or us or cousins are going to connect differently to different ancestors.

Laura Hedgecock  23:27

Yeah, and that's one of the things I write about in my book is, I really feel like the family stories should not be limited to the momentous events. But it should be moments. Because sometimes those were as much of a milepost in a lifetime as these momentous achievements. So I really strongly, strongly believe that all these stories are great stories to pass on. And we shouldn't have this false standard of Oh, it wasn't exceptional enough, or he was just a farmer are, they didn't have much money. Because their stories matter.

Heather Murphy  24:10

They do. And even just those little things. In another interview, one woman mentioned, just knowing that the way she made rice was the same way that her grandmother made rice that she'd never met. And just cool little teeny tiny thing. It makes you feel connected. It doesn't have to be those big, momentous things.

Laura Hedgecock  24:32

Right. And even the things that are different sometimes there's like a pretty universal appeal. Like, I know, an author in the Detroit working writers, and he was working on a poem. And it was about a time that he felt as an outcast in a group. And his experience wasn't anything I had experienced. But we had all experienced that moment of not fitting in. I feel like we had tried really hard and we were just never going to belong. And so it had a universal said, I feel like nobody is going to relate to my story. And I felt like all of us could relate to his story. Because we'd all been there in a different form.

Heather Murphy  25:14

And I think is even more powerful when we hear those stories are we create those stories as we research about people whose lives directly affected ours? Because they're our ancestors?

Laura Hedgecock  25:28

Mm hmm. And they weren't all perfect. And we're not. Oh, actually, yeah. So you asked me, you know, the one thing that I would advice I would give is, when it comes to writing, when we're researching too, but finding out those stories, you know, go for the imperfect stories. Everybody loves these conflicted characters. Perfection is boring. The real stories are what are riveting, where people do good things and bad things or have good intentions and things don't turn out right. Those are great stories.

Heather Murphy  26:08

And sometimes they're easier to connect to, because those perfect stories we see as fairy tales, whereas the real stories, we can actually say I can see myself in their shoes.

Laura Hedgecock  26:20

Yeah, there's actually been some brain research about when we and I always, I call it the Martha Stewart effect. That's not what they called it. But where you're comparing yourself to this perfect person. And it's really, it's almost the opposite of inspiring, it's kind of, oh, I'll never live up. And it just is totally off putting, it's discouraging to know, okay, I don't have to be perfect to matter to people or to make a difference. That's great.

Heather Murphy  26:52

And maybe as we learn the stories of our ancestors, and we have compassion on them for their imperfections that can maybe help us have a little bit more compassion with ourselves and our family that's living around us.

Laura Hedgecock  27:06

Yeah.

Heather Murphy  27:07

Is there anything else that you'd like to add any more advice that you would have for someone just starting out?

Laura Hedgecock  27:15

Advice for someone just starting out? I think my biggest advice would be, don't get overwhelmed by trying to document everybody that could possibly have ever been related to you. Just start small, maybe document those stories that people retell at every family reunion, then the things that are easiest to tell are also the easiest to write. Because we write with passion. So I would start with, you know, what's easy to tell our what everybody has been telling for decades in a way and then start building up and treated as well. You know, when we research, it's like, we don't have a Oh, it's going to be done point. Like, I have to fill this out, it's going to be done. And I think the story is is the same way that it's it's a hobby that we come back to. It's just a perpetual work in process that we're gathering those stories, and not this huge project that needs a due date.

Heather Murphy  28:16

I think that's a great point. Because it it can be intimidating if you think that's something that you can complete.

Laura Hedgecock  28:23

Yes. And you see that a lot in genealogical societies that people are out to document the family history, every line, every single ancestor have a sketch have a story. And they get bogged down and that the pressure of getting all that done. You're not enjoying it very some of them. Some of them are loving it. So that's the secret is to enjoy it as you go.

Heather Murphy  28:50

Great. Thanks so much for that advice, and for having this discussion with me today. I've really enjoyed talking with you.

Laura Hedgecock  28:57

I've had fun today. You're so easy to talk to. So thanks for having me.

Heather Murphy  29:01

Oh, thank you. And I will put links to your website, and other ways that people can get in touch with you in the show notes and see what other things you have to offer.

Laura Hedgecock  29:13

Well, thanks so much, Heather.

Heather Murphy  29:15

Oh, you're welcome.

Stories in Our Roots  29:17

Thank you for joining me today for stories in our roots. Please help this podcast grow by subscribing, leaving a review and sharing it with your friends. If you have feedback or would like to recommend someone to share their story, head to storiesinourroutes.com and fill out the form. Thanks again for listening and I look forward to being with you again next week.