Speaking to the past

I'll say hello to everyone because I'm the newbie on the block. One of those long lost cousins from Frederick Winkler's branch. Hopefully those of you reading this won't be long lost for much longer. I'm happy I have more family than I thought I did. Hello cousins!!

So, there I was, talking to one of those cousins, hearing timbres of my voice in hers and then I wondered....'What did this person and that person sound like? Wouldn't it be great to hear their voices just once? Is it possible to miss someone you never knew in the first place?' I posed those questions to my dad and I don't think I'd ever heard him sound wistful in my life, but there it was. "Yeah," he said, "I would love to hear my mother's voice again." Makes me kind of sad and sorry I even mentioned it. All the same, I am elated when I find my grandmother from my mom's side in a census. It sort of brought her back as I could definitely hear her voice in my head saying her sibling's names as I read them on the census. I even said, "hello gramma," aloud, when I read her name. I feel sorry for her mother though. 12 children in 23 years of marriage. PHEW!

Enough of my personal musings. I found an 1870 Census that I believe, locates Caroline Rohrbach in New York, New York. Interesting that her siblings were names William, Anna, Lousia, Philip and Amelia. All the children were born in New York. Their father is listed as Phil who was born in Prussia.

I am definitely making progress in some ways, having a new paid membership on one of the genealogy websites. Other avenues aren't so easy.