Junior Eileen Marti has been fortunate enough for her grandmother Susanne Marti to have taken the time to research their ancestors and even write a few books about their history.

Eileen’s family has two family books that date all the way back to the 1800s and as far as 1066. The two books hold many pictures of the Moran and Marti’s ancestors including their names, date of birth and some description of who they were. Both books are from her dad’s side of the family, the Moran book from her grandfather’s and the Marti from her grandmother’s.

Susanne had originally wanted to find pictures of her family for her mom, because her mom only owned one family photograph.

“I wrote the Moran book because at the time, my mom was dying, so it was more of the pictures that I was after,” Susanne said. “The photos were what really spurred me to start.”

The books make it easy for Eileen to learn more about her ancestry and be able to keep the family name alive.

“The books are really cool, they let me go back and look at all my ancestors,” Eileen said. “It’s interesting to look back at, I can remember who they were as people and learn more about them.”

The most interesting piece of information that Eileen has found within these books was that her and her ancestors share a common name.

“A lot of people on my grandma’s side have the middle name Eileen,” Eileen said. “My grandma has it and a lot of her ancestors have it as their middle name, even if they married into the family, which I think is really crazy.”

The Marti book also contains a document dating back to 1066, when Eileen’s ancestor, John Tucker, had been the first of his family in England, arriving with William the Conqueror.

“I have traced back as far as I can to try and figure out the 1066 [document]. It says that he had fought in the Battle of Hastings, which I thought was really cool, so I looked up the Battle of Hastings, but it was really confusing,” Eileen said.

Susanne is glad that she took the time to make these books for her family even if she wasn’t planning to at first, and would happily do more research to learn about her family’s history.

“I was rather selfish when I started because I just wanted the pictures,” Susanne said. “But at least I have written down some things, so if somebody wanted to know where we come from or our ancestry they will be able to find it.”

Susanne and her husband spent about two years creating and compiling all of the necessary information for the books and even printed over 1,500 pages for one of the books by themselves.

“I think that the older you get the more appreciative you are,” Susanne said. “I wish I had asked my parents more about [my family]. But I didn’t, and they are all gone now so there is no way [I could]. You always seem to think about it afterwards, but by then, there is nobody left to ask.”

Even with all the information that the book provides, Eileen would still like to learn more about her family ancestors.

“I would like to trace back to where I get my looks from,” Eileen said. “Then personality traits because my grandma says that I am like her sister that she never had.”