WATERTOWN, Mass. — In September 1936, Marion Boyajian of Melrose, Mass. married Albert Sarkis Talanian of Boston. Thus began the story of the Talanian Family Tree.
Through her mother-in-law, Hripsime (Tashjian) Talanian, Marion took the oral history of the Talanian Family. There being no computers in those days, she wrote it all down by hand on meat wrapping paper from her husband’s grocery store.
Years passed and the tree was updated sporadically. All the while, Talanian cousins kept asking about a family get together. In 1993, a committee was formed to plan a reunion.
The job of getting family updates of births, marriages and deaths had to be tackled. In preparation for the reunion, the committee researched all US phone books, sought Ellis Island records and mailed out questionnaires asking for updated information. Judy Talanian Shagoury and her husband, Chuck Shagoury (Marion’s daughter and son-in-law), took on the task of transferring old and new information to a computer program.
The first reunion was held in October 1993 and nearly 150 Talanians and their descendants from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Texas, California, Hawaii and Illinois came.
Years passed and still the cousins wanted another reunion. This one would be difficult since so many family members who attended the first reunion would not be there.
