Fearless Females: Favorite Female Ancestor

Lisa Alzo, who writes The Accidental Genealogist blog, has brought back a 31-day series of blogging themes called Fearless Females, in honor of celebrating March as Women's History Month. I hope to participate in as many of these blogging prompts as possible this month.


March 1 — Do you have a favorite female ancestor? One you are drawn to or want to learn more about? Write down some key facts you have already learned or what you would like to learn and outline your goals and potential sources you plan to check.

Sina Bellinger Kelly
age 17

I've already posted that 2011 is the year that I want to learn more about my maternal grandmother, Sina Bellinger Kelly. Sina's face graces every page of this blog this year.

Sina was in my life for such a short time; she died when I was five years old. At the time, we lived on the same property, so I saw Grandma Kelly every day. Mom related to me that on the day I started kindergarten, Grandma  said she was glad she could see me start school because she knew she would never live to see me graduate. Grandma died two months later.

I wonder if I ever had my photo taken with Grandma Kelly because I don't have any pictures of me with her. Sina was notorious for cutting herself out of photographs, so there's only a few images that I have to remember her by.

In January of this year, I wrote about the timeline of her life that I had put together based on events in her life: her birth, her marriage, the births of her children, deaths of her parents and brothers and the death of her first child. I know there is more of a story to weave from these events. One of my research projects for 2011 is to visit the Nebraska State Historical Society and read through the microfilmed versions of the Greenwood Gazette to see what I can glean about her life before I was born.

Another blog post I wrote about Sina was on the heels of hearing Lisa Alzo speak at the Family History Expo in Kansas City last summer. Lisa so eloquently spoke about giving a voice to silent women of our past. It was during that presentation that I knew I had to learn more about my grandmother Kelly.

I look forward to finding out more about Sina as a wife, mother and a woman in the coming months.

Read all posts in this series