Vacation Over!

This girl is getting back to work here under the Nut Tree! Summer is over and I woke up this morning ready to write. Was watching Anthony Bourdain's show, Parts Unknown, new season on CNN, and heard him talking about how his basic objective is to tell a good story. Yeah, it is. That's what I love about doing genealogy most, and I've always said it: I'm just in it for the stories.

My first step into the world of genealogy when Mom dragged me into this was to learn all the stories, many of which I'd heard all my life. The story of the Eckhart's land lost to the coal mining company was the first one I remembered. But this time around, and with Mom's research as a platform, I really dug in. My take is that it remains a dandy story and it's no wonder that the ancestors passed it down through five generations and still counting!

Did I tell you the story about my finding out that the Eckharts owned slaves? And before that I believed that none of our ancestors had owned slaves! No? I'll have to write about that and the other slave owners, all on Dad's side.

Now, through DNA testing Mom and I found out that we have .1% Sub-Saharan African DNA in exactly the same location on chromosome 10. There's got to be a story about how that got there. The Eckharts are on Dad's side but this Sub-Saharan African DNA show up through Mom.

And so the stories pile up around me, as I collect the threads that make up their whole cloth. I try to be patient as I hunt for particular records, or for cousins to pop up and share a hidden bit. Cousin Rich, for example, shares our passion for a group of ancestors who lived out on the frontier in the mountains of West Virginia. Now, because of his excellent work, he has evidence that our Hartley ancestors as well as the Biggerstaff ancestors helped supply the Revolutionary War.

A fellow from Australia just contacted Mom about a possible connection on our Williams line. We have been blocked there and not able to find out where my great great grandfather Daniel Williams' family went when they came from Wales to American in about 1870. This is a family of miners and our Daniel was a coal miner in Western Maryland, so that's a clue. But we've never been able to find his family. Perhaps this branch goes all the way to Australia. You can read about our search and the Mystery Photo here.

Meanwhile, I'm working putting together some stories Mom wrote about growing up in the town of Frostburg, Allegany, Maryland. She's 95 now and sharp as a tack, aren't you Mom! And still writing. Got some of the pages laid out and realized that every time I needed to insert a photo, it was hiding from me! So I'm re-organizing my photo file... again. Now it will be easier to make blog posts that include pictures of Mom's aunts and uncles.

I do hope that your own summer was fun and that you enjoyed your time with family... and took lots of photos that you'll organize very well;)

Mom's Aunt Grace Whetstone Knowles (1893 - 1959), Uncle "Tad" Clarence Whetstone (1891-1976), and their mother Catherine Elizabeth "Kate" House Whetstone (1865-1947).

Aunt Zoe Whetstone Powell (1864-1948), Christmas morning, 1942. She was sister to Mom's grandfather Joseph Hampton Whetstone (1858-1939).

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/09/vacation-over.html