Visiting the Cooper-Thomas Cemetery, Burke County, GA

**This looks like a long post, but it's full of pictures!**

Last July, my mother, sister and I traveled to Georgia to meet up with her siblings and extended maternal family at the Cooper-Cummings Family Reunion. While there were lots of nice moments at the reunion, some of which are pictured here, the highlight for me was absolutely getting to visit the family cemetery on our final day in Georgia.

Driving toward the cemetery, in Burke County, Georgia.

Hopes and Goals for 2017!

 Friends and Family, Happy New Year!

2016 was a pretty great year for my family history research. Almost 10 months of it were part of my great Year Off, giving me spans of free time and mobility to go off and research that working full time doesn’t allow for. I definitely took advantage of it!  

The Fish Are Biting!

In genealogy circles, family history blogs are sometimes known as "cousin bait." It's a term I'm not necessarily in love with, because I think of my blog first and foremost as a way to *share* information, not solicit it, but even I have to admit, there's truth in the idea! Heck, I want people to reach out to me when they have information or stories I'm missing! I want this blog to allow me to connect with folks, whether they're family or they just love genealogy and history.


Well guess what? That's exactly what's happened recently!

 

Time Traveling Along the Whaley Family Tree

Well, you know the first thing I did after visiting with my paternal grandfather was spend a few days researching my Whaley family roots. I'm actually surprised by how far back I was able to go in such a short amount of time! Armed with his memories, birth certificates that connect me to his dad (my great-grandfather), and the census and vital records available on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, I have a pretty credible chain that takes me back to a man named Joe Whaley, who was born about 1823! This makes him - my 3x Great-Grandfather - one of the earliest relatives on my family tree!

Here's a quick and dirty climb up the family tree, starting with my Great-Grandfather, Morris Lee Whaley. (Note: Because my grandfather is still alive, I'm not posting his personal information here. This is my general rule on this blog, for privacy's sake.)

This is the 1920 Census for Morris, living in Baker County, Georgia. He's barely a teenager - 13 years old - and living with his parents, my 2x Great-Grandparents, Kit and Grace Whaley:

Midwestern Snaps and Surnames

Chicago, the final stop of my Midwestern trip

I'm just settling in back home after a pretty interesting (and at times super fun) week-long trip to the Midwest. I hung out with my grandmother in Ohio and got to show her a few yearbook pictures of her and her siblings that she hadn't seen in years (score one for the internet!). Then my aunt and I went on a mini-road trip to West Virginia for the main purpose of my trip: interviewing her father, my grandfather, about his family history. And finally, I swung past Chicago for a great few days of catching up with a college friend, meeting her husband for the first time (I was at the wedding, but he was a *bit* busy), and loving up on their adorable baby girl. It was a good trip! Here are a few snaps and notes:

Notes From the Ether: Life and Research Updates

I know it's been a little quiet (ok, very!) over here in KINterested land, so I'm here with a few updates.

A little over a year ago - September 2015 - I posted a list of genealogical hopes for my Year Off. Here we are, at the beginning of August 2016, and my Year Off is almost over. In fact, that's part of why I've been so quiet - with my time away from work running out, I've both been contemplating ideas for a final trip abroad and also beginning to think about job options and career possibilities.

For the first, I've finally decided to spend about 3 and a half weeks in Europe again, but this time exploring Denmark and The Netherlands. You'll find me writing about that over at my other blog, A Runs Away, beginning in late August.

Cooper-Cummings 2016 Family Reunion in Photos

My first cousin once removed (aka, my mom's first cousin) and several generations of his family. Courtesy of L. Whaley.

This time last week, I was in a car somewhere between North Carolina and Philly, on my way home from the Cooper-Cummings Family Reunion in Augusta, Georgia. (Why North Carolina, then? It's a long drive - we did it in two days. We're not road warriors, lol!)