Interesting Preliminary Ancestry Research

Remember a while back when I mentioned watching Who Do You Think You Are on TLC? I’ve kind of developed an itch to find out more about my own ancestors.

So, I went to Ancestry.com the other night and got started, doing some surface scratching. I came across the passenger manifest of United Airlines Flight 649-5 from San Francisco to Honolulu on July 5, 1947, and found Dad’s, Mom’s, and my name listed.

Everything on the printed form was handwritten (remember, there were no computers back then), but all of it was legible. Our last names had been scratched out and reprinted, so evidently, the United staff in San Francisco didn’t know how to spell Japanese names. It’s kind of humorous if you stop to think about it. Plus you have to remember, it was less than two years after the Japanese had surrendered during World War II.

But I digress.

I scrolled up and down the page (Ancestry.com had only the first page of the manifest), and recognized a name – Walter Dillingham, age 72.

Walter F. Dillingham was known as the “Baron of Hawaii Industry” when Hawaii was a territory of the United States. His birthday was listed on the flight manifest as April 5, 1875; a little research on the Internet confirmed it, so yes, that was him. We were on the plane with a famous man in Hawaiian history.

I betcha Dad didn’t know who he was, and for sure, Mom, who grew up in Sacramento and Chicago, didn’t. Me? I was only 2½ (it said so on the manifest), so I definitely didn’t know.

In a way, it’s amazing that it took all these decades for me to make this discovery. It’s not of great significance in my life, but it’s pretty interesting.