The Genealogy Gods...

When I'm researching there are some things that can really bug me, for instance I might come across a name that I know I need but cant place the name any where and no one can help with it no matter how much I ask or look. My dads no help because he's the cause of it some times, he has a habit of just throwing names up at me with out being able to tell me who they are or what to do them with me.

Normally I would dwell on them for days and weeks but lately I've found that as soon as a name is thrown at me within a couple of days I have found an answer. For instance I while ago I was talking to my dad about how pretty some of the old Lebanese names were...I say were because they don't get used anymore. He just starts rattling of names of people Farha, Diahabiye, Almaza, Wardie, Habka and Barbara, these are all woman that are my grandfathers first cousins.....I think great more names to fill gaps as tracing the female line is always very hard. I placed all of them except Barbara and Habka. This is around 12 months ago and I made no head way at all. Then a couple of days ago Barbara and Habka's name come up in conversation again and same thing dad cant remember who their father is and says I might have to talk to my Uncle Youssef as he's the oldest family member and would know....great another brick wall.

Then last night the genealogy gods opened their hearts to me and by sheer accident I found Barbara Khoury's name amongst the Ancestry.com's many files in a Passport Application from 1923 and low and behold there's her fathers name Shebly John Khoury. I tell my dad and he agrees saying he remembers a family in the village called Bayt Bu Shibly.

Over the last few months this has been happening regularly where I need information or find some ones name and have no clue what to do with them, then all of a sudden its like I'm steered to the answer and for that I thank my ancestors who seem to be watching over me and hand feeding me the information I need.

The fountain of information.....

My dad has been back in Australia for the last couple of weeks and has been a fountain of information for me. Though I talk regularly on the phone to him its not the same as having him here telling me the stories or telling how so and so is related to us.

What I have found is that if I ask him straight up who this person is most of the time he wont know or cant remember. So I've come up with a cunning plan in that I just get him talking about Derdghaya or a family member and then just throw in the odd question or two and he generally just answers them with out realising. Some times a query gets answered that I wasn't asking for in a story he maybe telling or as happened the other day he tipped some of my research upside down because I realised 2 people I had as brothers were actually father and son or he starts firing of names I hadn't even come across.....so its been a bit of a journey.

Some of the stories he has told me have changed some of the things I had believed and opened up new paths for me to head down which is a good thing because some of my research was headed towards dead ends especially when it came to the Khoury's. He always said to me the Khoury's were the most travelled from Derdghaya but I have never really been able to open those door quite fully but have now gained a bit of an insight which way to go.

So onwards and upwards we push in this never ending family tree...