Riverchase genealogy club hooks students on histories

02/25/04
GIGI DOUBAN
News staff writer

Fourteen-year-old Katie Banasiewicz recently found out she's related to a guy named Ignatius, whose hometown in Poland was destroyed during World War II, bringing him to America.

She also learned the original pronunciation of her own last name, and that her great-great-great-great-grandfather was kicked out of England for stealing a bunch of shoe buckles.

So much for conventional adolescent self-discovery.

The newest club at Riverchase Middle School has a dozen or so students absorbed in the quirky tidbits of their families' past. Students can come and go as they please to Genealogy Club meetings. Some of them seem hooked.