I’m having some Saturday Night Genealogy Fun (#SNGF), with help from Randy Seaver and his prompts! Feel free to join in.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: June 13, 2026

Prompt: “Were you lucky enough to receive or find artifacts from your ancestors (parents, grandparents, others) as you pursued your genealogy research? Describe one or more of the artifacts you found or received and where you obtained them?”

Introduction

One person’s “why are we keeping this?” may be a genealogist’s “thank goodness someone did.” The artifacts our ancestors left behind, whether treasured heirlooms or forgotten odds and ends, can open small windows into their daily lives, their values, their work, and sometimes even their secrets.

Would that we all had boxes full of family artifacts waiting to be discovered.

Although, to be fair, perhaps not too many boxes. I’ve heard that can become its own genealogical problem. It just isn’t one I’ve personally had.

My own collection of family artifacts is fairly small, which makes me treasure the few pieces I do have all the more. I have written before about the Britton forks, but because they are among the most meaningful artifacts in my possession, they deserve another moment in the spotlight.

The Britton Forks

My grandmother, Edith Makey West, lost her mother, Alice Britton Makey, when Grandma was only three years old. Alice’s parents were already gone by then as well, so Grandma grew up with very little direct connection to her maternal family. She had a beloved aunt, but not much else that tied her to the Britton side.

That is part of what makes the forks so special.

Somehow, Grandma came to have a set of forks marked with the initial B, presumably for Britton, Alice’s maiden name. I do not know exactly how they passed down to her, or who first owned them, but I can imagine what they must have meant. For a little girl who lost her mother so young, even an ordinary household object could become something precious.

A fork is not usually the kind of thing that makes history books. It does not announce itself as important. It does not come with a biography attached. But when it is one of the few tangible links a daughter has to her mother’s family, it becomes something more than silverware.

It becomes a connection.

Grandma’s Gift

Many years later, when I got bit by the genealogy bug, Grandma became my biggest supporter and champion. She was the one who challenged me to connect her line to “the” Staten Island Brittons: the Brittons who settled in that New York area in the 1660s.

Eventually, I did.

That discovery mattered to both of us. For Grandma, it helped restore a piece of family history that had been thinned by early loss. For me, it turned names and dates into something deeply personal. This was not just a lineage on paper. This was Grandma’s mother’s family. This was the family represented by that small initial B on the forks she had kept.

At some point, Grandma proudly gave the Britton forks to me. One of them now hangs on my wall.

It is a simple object, but I am honored to have it. I am honored to hold something that helped connect Grandma to the mother she barely knew, and I am honored that she trusted me to carry that connection forward.

Postscript

I married a man with a B last name, which makes the forks feel oddly at home in my family, too.

Maybe one day they should go to my daughter-in-law. After all, sometimes the best family artifacts are the ones that keep gathering meaning as they move from one generation to the next.

AI Disclosure

This post was created by me with the help of AI tools. While AI helps organize research, the storytelling and discoveries are my own.