Saw a news article on a guy who found an old class ring, 90 years after the owner lost it, and returned it to the owner's grandson.
In the article, a reference was made to the finder using the website findagrave.com to assist in locating the grandson.
On a whim, I typed in my grandfather's name on that website and found it! My grandmother is on there too.
This led to a quick search on a free geneaology site where I found out more details on my grandparents, stuff my parents never told me (dysfunctional family, yada yada, skip boring parts).
I'm stunned - I had a mental picture of my grandparents from teh bits & pieces I got from my parents, but my whole picture has flipped!
-- My grandfather was a WWI veteran & was born in Iowa
-- My grandmother was born in Wyoming in the late 1890's - maybe I'm the great grandson of a wild west cowboy!
-- They married in Ohio, which I never expected either
I'm new to geneaology searches, but I'm suddenly hooked.
Any recommendations on free sites to search? Ancestry.com appears to be one of the buiggest sites, but I'm way to cheap to pay for a membership. The one I did use seems to have large gaps in its database.