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My Grandparents

Genealogy is a mental condition that makes you pay attention to long-dead ancestors at the expense of the family around you. I appear to have caught it from my mom, and she got it from her grandfather.

I intend to use this site to share some of what they and I have learned. To avoid publishing anything sensitive I'm going to leave out all my living relatives, and instead focus on my grandparents and their ancestors. So let's meet them.

Arthur and Mildred (Spicka) Quaid, Helen (Greenock) and Marshall Jackson, in December 1953

I think this may be the only photograph I have with all four of my grandparents, and as you might guess this was taken at my parents' wedding reception in December 1953, at Surma's Restaurant in Chicago.

From left to right:
  • Arthur Emmet Aloysius Quaid (1908-1996) was the son Irish immigrants. They married in Canada before moving to Chicago to raise their family.
  • Mildred Ann Spicka (1908-1980) was the daughter of Bohemian immigrants.
  • Helen Jean Greenock (1903-1994) had a father born in Scotland and a mother born in Illinois to German immigrant parents.
  • Marshall Benton Jackson (1900-1999) was born in Kentucky to parents with deep roots in this country, ultimately coming mostly from England.
So that's two first-generation Americans, one second generation, and one descendant of Jamestown settlers.
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