Hello. I am trying to put together my family tree and catelogue all the pictures and various artifacts left to me by my parents and grandparents. I have a family tree started through Ancestry.com, but I'm not very happy with their format. It isn't user friendly and it is very limited. I thought I'd get more for my money - darn it.
Anyway, my mother and grandparents barely escaped Aintab during the massacre. I have many stories and pictures they brought with them. It is very heartbreaking. My mother managed to get several tapes of my grandmother talking about her story. However, she speaks in Ottomon Turk and it costs me a lot to get it translated. Plus, Turkish translators do not know the Armenian words she uses. I have about 4 more tapes I'd like to get translated without having to pay an arm and a leg. I'm not rich.
On my father's side, it's not very clear as my grandfather died before I was born. Many things about that side of the family remain a mystery to me, but I've been uncovering them little by little. My grandfather arrived to the U.S. around 1890 with his uncle and cousins. He was probably only around 12. It is unclear what happened to his parents. My grandmother arrived at about 15 years and they married right away. In her village, Dyabekir, her parents were killed and the children scattered. Her 8 year old sister was taken by a Turk who later married her. Her sister actually came to the U.S. around 1958 and I met her. I have a newspaper article talking about how the sisters found each other through advertisements in an Armenian-language newspaper here in Calif.
Oh dear, this is getting quite long. As you can see, there is much to say and I really would like to put it all in a book, but I have many things to figure out still. As time goes on, I'll put some pictures up here that might remind someone of their family - maybe I'll find a distant relative. That would be exciting.