Now What?!?!

Now that my family reunion is over, I’m feeling a little lost on what I should do next. Of course I’m researching my family tree, but I had a project. It was to present the family tree at the reunion. Project completed. NOW WHAT?

I have several ideas in the works. Still working on the family website and trying to decide should I have one or convert it to the NING.com site. If I keep the website, I want to have pages for all branches of my tree (Spence, Lowry, Banks, McCoy). We’ll see what happens.

I plan on starting another project called “Millpond Project”.

I’ve been told for many years that everyone on this road is family. Now, I aim to prove it. After doing some quick research on a few different people on that road, I have been able to connect them back to my tree. In addition, since these are living family, I won’t be posting about them just their ancestors.

I am working on a mystery regarding a cousin. I didn't have the pleasure of knowing him since he passed before I began this journey. He was the nephew of my great grandfather, Aaron Edward Spence. However, when I asked how. Of course, no one could tell me. Prior to the reunion, I was able to track his daughter down and ask her some questions about her father. It's amazing what information you can find. More about this mystery on another blog.

The family network site is going well, and I like it much better than a Yahoo or Google group since it doesn’t have to be tied to having one type of e-mail address to use it. Thanks to Mechie for introducing it to me and thanks to my family who have signed on and invited more family to join!

Wordless Wednesdays...

New addition to the family. How do you add him to the tree?

Recap

My family reunion was this past weekend (22-24) and we had a great time!

Friday night was the Meet & Greet. I got to see family I hadn’t seen in many years. BUT, I met my 2nd cousin 2 times removed (see the bottom of blog for figuring that out). His grandfather, Preston Banks, and my 3rd Great Grandmother, Harriet Banks, were siblings.

I had previously researched his grandfather’s family. So, when my uncle introduced us and explained who he was, I did what most genealogists would do. I started rattling off who he’s the son, grandson, great grandson of..on both sides of his tree. I think he was pretty impressed by the fact that not only did I know about his Banks side, but I knew about his mother’s Williams side as well.

On Saturday, my fiancé and I went around town. I got some things marked off my list. I visited the FRSNNC which I am a member of and met the President, Sharon Gable. It was a pleasure meeting her b/c I have e-mailed her often for assistance with my family research. Then we went by the library to pick up a copy of an article that the genalogist made for me. It cost me a whole $.10 to get. Then we went exploring.

I wanted to see if I could find my great grandmothers house. I was going off of memory and we just started driving. After a couple of wrong turns, we found it.

The beautiful thing about this is, alot of my family stays on this one road. So all we had to do is park the car and visit with more family.

Saturday night was amazing. Going to our banquets is like going to church. My uncles, The Spence Brothers, are gospel singers in Elizabeth City and they sing at many of the churches there. Every reunion, they sing and it makes you want to get out of your seat. We also had another gospel group come and sing. I don’t have the name of them but they were outstanding. When I get their name, I’ll update the post. When I say that the guy singing “Never would have made it” sounded EXACTLY like Marvin Sapp…that is no exaggeration.

My presentation of the family tree and our history went over well. I think it sparked a lot of interest in the rest of the family by seeing how much work I’ve done over the past year. My only regret is that more of Enoch and Rosa descendents weren’t in attendance. However, I employed my daughter to collect everyone’s address, phone # and e-mail address and she did an amazing job!

Sunday was our farewell cookout. I spent most of the time visiting with family, collecting more addresses for my database and taking pictures.

This weekend I took over 150 pictures. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to take a group photo. There was so much to do and so little time. Hopefully next year, that will be accomplished.

But I can say that I can't wait to go back on a research trip! Especially since I've learned the city!

Final Project Completed!

I just finished the poster that I'm doing for my family reunion. I almost felt like it was a school project that I better get an 'A' on!!

Hopefully my family will appreciate this and enjoy it. Better yet, they'll open up and hand over some stories and photos.

One question though..Should I add something like 'Completed by A. Spence'?

DONATE TO AFRIGENEAS!

All I have to say is this: You have a Ancestry, Footnote, etc.com account that you're paying $XX.XX per month for. However, if you are African American/black and have used the Afrigeneas website, you should donate. It is the most valuable place on cyberspace that black people have. To keep it going and keep connected with other researchers, we need to donate.

You can even have them link you on the sponsor's page so that I will help promote your website/blog.

Afrigeneas will keep you connected with everything from Adoption to Writing. With the amount of visitors the site has, it doesn't have nearly enough people donating. I just wanted to encourage anyone that was 'thinking' of doing so, to go ahead and do it.

Annie Jones (McPherson)

This is Annie Jones. She is the daughter of William Henry McPherson (B: 1872) and Hattie E. (Bouges) McPherson (B: 1877, D: 23 May 1923). This article was in the family book my aunt made. It had no caption that indicated a connection to our Spence-Lowry family. Just that she was the sister of Zelna Hinton (McPherson).

The other day, I got one of those wonderful “I found your profile on Ancestry.com” e-mails. I love those! I don’t care if it’s about my family or the cousin’s husband’s sister’s family that is on my tree. I add everyone I find to my ancestry tree if I can connect them to someone. If a cousin got married, I add the husband and his family. You never know…this may lead to something.

And as it has, this has led someone finding additional piece of their family that they didn’t know existed (this article). The great thing is; she has the same pictures of William and Hattie McPherson that I do. Although mine are photo copies, it’s still great. That means there is a close connection between our families.

I posted this article for her. Here you go ‘cuz’.

You could help....

Now, I'm not asking for much. Just a little cooperation on your part. *smile*

• Your voice mail must say “You have reached the descendants of Aaron Spence, please leave a message”
• Your e-mail signature should read “Our ancestors are African American”
• You’re required to have a 3 generation family tree on hand at all times.
• Know where your precious photos are and who they were given too.
• Scan them (at 600 dpi) before you hand them over to anyone.
• Do not put tape on the front of the photo...PLEASE.
• Stop claiming fake cousins – it’s nice and all…but..very confusing.
• Attend the family reunion.
• Give out your #. We are not telemarketers..we're family.
• Everything is important, even that lil note you had from auntie such-n-such on the proper method of baking a pie.
• When I say send all pictures, I really do mean all.
• Tell me the whole story at once. No need to revisit with you 4 times and get 4 different versions.

That is all....for now....

American Legacy

One day, in a search for 'African American Magazine', I came across American Legacy. I had never heard of this magazine before and loved that it was for us. Not about Lil Wayne or Puffy. But about the little known black people in history that made a difference. I loved it.

After going thru the site, they have a family reunion page for you to list your family reunion. Of course, I listed mine. However, if you scroll all the way to the bottom, there is a link for 'Family Reunion Sample'.

What they do is offer a discount subscription for the attendees. I thought that was awesome. So, I sent an e-mail to the person. This was about 2 months ago.

Today, when I came home I had 6 boxes at my front door. In each of the 5 boxes contained 40 copies of their magazine.
In the last box, contained about 250 or so copies of an actual family tree with our names printed on it and 250 copies of family group sheets.

I am so happy about this!! Do you know how much printing this saved me?!?!?!?!

Thank you American Legacy.

Sad Story.....

….about family memories lost.

When my Great Grandmother Bessie passed away, her things were divided. As many precious things, some her children didn’t know what to do with. So, they left them in her home to make a decision at a later date. Her home is in our family so there were no worries of anything happening to them.

However, one relative came to live in Grandma Bessie’s house after her passing. Many of her things were removed when this relative moved out. Such as: a picture of my 2nd great grandparents, William and Harriet Lowry. These were Grandma Bessie’s parents.

The story goes that this relative took the picture to take to ‘someone’ to get copies made. But, this ‘someone’ lost the picture. Nor does this relative remember who this ‘someone’ is now.

I hope this story is NOT true. I hope that the relative is just hoarding the picture and other belongs. I hope that they weren’t just lost due to irresponsibility. Something so precious just can’t be lost!

I know I’m early into my research and people having quite opened up completely to everything just yet. But, I hope and pray that this is something that will come to light soon.

Word of the day: Griot

I have never heard this word before today. Thanks Mechie for the new word.

I love to Google things I don’t know and of course when I read her comment on my other blog, I googled this word.

Griots are West African Story Tellers of family histories of a tribe. Now, when I read that, I thought “I’m mostly East African since my mom is from Ethiopia” But as I read further, the first person on the list of griots on Wikipedia is an Ethiopian man by the name of Ayalew Mesfin. And he seems to be the only Ethiopian listed.

Then I searched for him, and came across Ethiopiques. I’ll be ordering this CD for my mom when I get home.

My search also took me to this website, African American Griots. I never knew this existed. But, I quickly submitted my blog and surname info so I can be listed. As George Geder always says, "Guided by the Ancestors". This is a definite case of that.