My great grandfather was a fish peddler during the Great Depression when he moved his wife, three daughters, and his son from Massachusetts to Oakland, California to start a new life. Had I not met Leslie Lawson for an interview in the Nike employee store parking lot in Beaverton, Oregon, this jewel of a family tidbit may have remained buried forever.
Leslie, a professional genealogist, restores a sense of family within families. She captures the trials and tribulations of a family through research on a nifty resource we call like to call the “internet.”
Her grandmother inadvertently instilled a sense of family within Leslie as a small child, sparking her interest in genealogy some thirty years later when Leslie’s first daughter was born. Wanting to know where information could be found on her daughter’s birth, she started to explore the ins and outs of family research while working at an accounting firm.
Once the internet provided an endless amount of information on family history, and her children were through college, Leslie downgraded her full time accounting position to part-time. For seven years she has worked a part-time accounting job to pay the bills while pursuing her passion for family.
“Families are forever,” Leslie says. “It’s important to know where you come from.”
