I have been researching my family for many years, and spend a lot of time "doing genealogy". I am particularly interested in genetic genealogy and have siblings, cousins, and other family members who have taken DNA tests at Ancestry, 23andme, and FTDNA to help to verify our family lines through DNA.

DNA tests have helped me to break through some brick walls that could not have been accomplished any other way, due to burned courthouses and missing documents.

Over time, I will gradually add more biographies to the memorial pages of my family so that some of what I have learned in my research will be easily accessible to others.

All of the memorials I am managing are related to me or my husband in some way (a few are by marriage only).

Some of the surnames I am researching are Allen, Baker, Bailey, Dansby, Strong, Daniel, McComb, Keaton, Hopson, Spradlin and Hammond, McCan or McCann, generally in the west GA and east AL areas, but also VA, the Carolinas, and Texas.
~~~~~

WE ARE THE CHOSEN

My feelings are in each family we are called to find the ancestors.
To put flesh on their bones and make them live again,
To tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve.
To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead,
Breathing life into all who have gone before.

We are the story tellers of the tribe.
We have been called as it were by our genes.
Those who have gone before cry out to us:
Tell our story.
So, we do.
In finding them, we somehow find ourselves.. . . .
. . . .. . . . . . . . . . .

It is up to that one called in the next generation,
To answer the call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers.
That is why I do my family genealogy,
And that is what calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bone.

by Della M. Cumming
(part of a much longer poem)

I have been researching my family for many years, and spend a lot of time "doing genealogy". I am particularly interested in genetic genealogy and have siblings, cousins, and other family members who have taken DNA tests at Ancestry, 23andme, and FTDNA to help to verify our family lines through DNA.

DNA tests have helped me to break through some brick walls that could not have been accomplished any other way, due to burned courthouses and missing documents.

Over time, I will gradually add more biographies to the memorial pages of my family so that some of what I have learned in my research will be easily accessible to others.

All of the memorials I am managing are related to me or my husband in some way (a few are by marriage only).

Some of the surnames I am researching are Allen, Baker, Bailey, Dansby, Strong, Daniel, McComb, Keaton, Hopson, Spradlin and Hammond, McCan or McCann, generally in the west GA and east AL areas, but also VA, the Carolinas, and Texas.
~~~~~

WE ARE THE CHOSEN

My feelings are in each family we are called to find the ancestors.
To put flesh on their bones and make them live again,
To tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve.
To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead,
Breathing life into all who have gone before.

We are the story tellers of the tribe.
We have been called as it were by our genes.
Those who have gone before cry out to us:
Tell our story.
So, we do.
In finding them, we somehow find ourselves.. . . .
. . . .. . . . . . . . . . .

It is up to that one called in the next generation,
To answer the call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers.
That is why I do my family genealogy,
And that is what calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bone.

by Della M. Cumming
(part of a much longer poem)