Shut Up, and Keep Digging

Anybody else old enough to remember “Mommy, Mommy!” jokes?

Q: Mommy, Mommy! I don’t want to go to China!

A: Shut up, and keep digging.

That’s how I feel researching my family history sometimes. I keep digging and digging, and the hole gets bigger and bigger, but I never seem to arrive.

Case in point: my great-great grandfather, William Thomas. I’ve been searching for his death certificate for twenty years. It doesn’t help that both of his names are very common, but even so … twenty years? It’s in the 20th century, for heaven’s sake!

But I am a bulldog, and once I get a hold of a bone, I keep digging at it.

More Pictures of Vernard

Just wanted to post a couple more photos of Vernard Bailey, especially for members of the family who may not have them. I wrote about Vernard, and how he disappeared after World War II (click on the photo to see it larger).

This was probably taken when he enlisted. He still has a boyish enthusiasm that is gone by the time the photo I posted last time was taken. According to family legend, Vernard was captured during WWII on an island, and got malaria. When he came home, he was not the same and was put on disability. This is a photo Vernard’s daughter sent me.