Good Deeds of Many Researchers

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 47 (Nov. 18-24)
Prompt: Good Deeds
#52ancestors

As I thought about what to write this week, I started multiple times with different subjects but nothing really stood out for me until a couple of days ago when a distant relative did a good deed. Over the years, I have had a multitude of distant relatives help me with my genealogy.  Starting with Katherine Walter from Tyler, TX in the 70s who shared her work on our mutual McCarley line.  Over the years, I have documented her work and expanded on it in many places. She was a meticulous researcher and I wish she were still here to continue collaborating. She was patient with me as a beginning researcher who was eager to learn and I have learned that she helped other McCarley researchers get started. 

Then there was my Grand Aunt Nina, sister to my Grandmother,  who in the 80s sent me through the mail some tin type pictures to copy and send back to her. She knew my Dad but not me so I always felt very honored that she trusted me to send them back. 

Descended from a sister to my great grandmother, Bernice Ammann Irwin, sent me a binder with information about my Maddy family.  It was copied from original type written pages with pictures.  Over the Xerox copied pictures, she glued photographs. I didn't check her work for many years, but when I did start documenting, it was all correct, except for leaving the e out of my maiden name.  I was thrilled to see my family listed with all of my siblings. I still treasure that binder with all the pages encased in sheet protectors.

In 2014, Don Ivey, who is descended from my great grandmother's third husband, sent me pictures of her. Sarah Violet Herndon died when she was only 34 years old and no one in my family had ever seen a picture of her.  Don's sharing those pictures caused excitement among many members of my family. My Grandmother considered James Wesley Ivey her father, and she had very fond memories of him.  She had also told us that my Mother looked like Sarah Violet. The pictures do show a remarkable resemblance, but they also show that one of my cousins bears some resemblance to her, also.  One of the pictures  has her and Wesley driving an early model car with a flower in the radiator.  I can't help but believe that Wesley must have been fond of Sarah Violet even after the divorce to have kept her pictures and passed them down in his family. 

This week, I received a picture of Cassie McCarley from a descendant of my great grandparents. I am so grateful to Trinity and her brother, Rob, for sharing this picture. Cassie died when she was only 3 years old and I have researched for her records off and on for many years.  My Grand Aunt Viola is also in the picture and while I have memories of her and pictures of her as an older woman, this is the first picture of her as a baby I have seen.

One of the purposes for my blog is to share with the rest of my family, not just the dates and places of our ancestors, but their stories. Without the good deeds of many distant relatives, I would not know nor be able to share their lives.