I had always had a latent interest in family history, but I never found the time to pursue it until Pat M., my father's cousin, shared this note with me. Unsigned and lacking an addressee or even a date, this correspondence piqued my interest to the point that I had to solve the mystery of our family history. (Of course, I have since discovered that genealogy provides an unlimited supply of such mysteries).

From the parenthetical reference to "our great-grandmother" and the handwritten reference to "Art", I was convinced that the author of the note was my grandfather, Fay Mathews. This also seemed plausible since I knew his father's name was George. Further, the present tense reference to "Belle, now the wife of the wife of Stephen Thorne, of Hannibal, Mo." convinced me that this was a transcription of a historical source, rather than a contemporaneous reference, as from the dates referenced I could deduce that this person must have long since died. What was this uncited source, I wondered.

As I learned more about the "George F." appearing in the correspondence, however, I realized that he was too young to have been Fay Mathews' father. This sadly caused me to doubt my grandfather. Had he mistakenly connected us with this family? I had heard that "family lore" is often incorrect.

New to genealogy, I discovered that I had failed to follow one of its basic tenets, namely, to construct one's family history beginning from the present generation working back one generation at a time. To this end, I first obtained a copy of Fay's social security application, (above). It indicated that his father's name was George Bain Mathews. I next obtained a copy of George's death certificate. It told me that his father's name was Rufus Mathews and that he was born in Palmyra, MO. Interesting, I thought, same area as the family referenced in the history.

With some additional research, I was able to determine that Rufus was also the son of Jacob and Catherine (Calvert) Mathews, and as it turned out, the older brother of the "George W. Mathews" referenced in the history. So this excerpt did pertain to our family after all. What a relief! The George F. that I had presumed to be Fay's father turned out to be his father's cousin.

So what was the source being transcribed? In researching the family's history, I had put out many a feeler to folks on the Internet requesting look-ups and such. In time, one of these was answered by a Melinda B. of Hannibal, MO., who kindly photocopied a page from the "Atlas map of Marion County, Missouri, 1875" at the Hannibal Public Library. When I received this in the mail, I was amazed to discover that, with the exception of the title and the parenthetical reference to "our great-grandmother", it matched the "History" exactly.

Now all that remains is to discover to whom this note was directed. Maybe then we can figure out what happened to the family bible and the coat of arms!

I'm thankful to Pat M. for sending me this note and getting me started on our family history. That it did not spell everything out was probably just as well since it challenged me to learn how to research one's family history. Could this be what the author of this note have actually intended by composing this great riddle, to challenge his descendants to take up this research? It certainly had this effect on me.