Connect to the Genealogy Community!

Genealogy can often feel like a solo job. We venture out to local libraries, archives, and cemeteries. We go off to do some online research for a few hours. We study our families and conduct our research when we can find the time, but so often it is done alone.

And that, y'all, is where conferences and the online genealogy community come in!

Our community is a dynamic one, too. Whether you're on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (or all three, right?!) you can connect with writers, bloggers, speakers, professional genealogists and amateur family historians alike.

Following #genealogy or #familyhistory can keep us connected to others, and if you think about it...that's why most of us study our families to begin with. To feel - or to truly be - connected to them. To discover the story of you.

As I've followed my friends and colleagues online, I can't help but be a little jealous of something I wasn't able to attend recently. This past week was RootsTech London, the first time RootsTech went to Europe. I've only been to London once, and that was just for a few hours during a long layover. So to go to a genealogy conference in the land where nearly all of my ancestors come from sounds so much fun! And from photos I saw, it looked like a really great conference!

Even though I missed out on RootsTech London, guess what's coming up soon!? Like 117 days, soon. RootsTech 2020 in Salt Lake City, Utah!!

I've been counting down the days for many months, but as we get closer to 2020, I'm getting that much more excited. It's a chance to see friends, to make new ones, and to make sure that the fire of excitement for family history is rekindled and made strong again. During the year, we get busy and our focus on our individual research can often fall by the wayside in light of immediate priorities. But after attending a conference, we're given new ideas, given fresh vision to see the holes in our research, and the new ways we might be able to approach our brick walls.

I hope you'll join me this year at RootsTech from February 26-29, 2020. It's only $189 for 4 days of amazing content. Find your flight now, book an Airbnb, and you'll save a lot of money...and make a great trip to bolster your genealogy research. Trust me, it's the third RootsTech I'm making in a row! You won't regret it!

*****

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

Greek Genealogy Conference in Virginia Beach

Each community has its own unique genealogical challenges. But genealogists love challenges, don't we? There seems to be something ingrained in the genealogist that makes us a glutton for punishment! Genealogy gold always seems to show up at 12:30am, for example. It's just one of those things!

The Greek community has various challenges relating to access to records, to their relatively small DNA sample database, and diverse ethnicity estimates. Over the years - in my time working with the Greek Orthodox Church - I've had the pleasure of researching several Greek families and have had first-hand experience maneuvering U.S. records relating to Greek families and the challenges of Greek naming conventions.

I have wanted to do a genealogy project to serve the Greek community in my area, to rouse some excitement about family history, and to inspire them to dig deeper into their family roots. Enter the lovely Carol Kostakos Petranek of the blog Spartan Roots. Together we planned a Greek Genealogy Conference here in Virginia Beach on Saturday, October 19, 2019. Carol was even able to bring in a researcher named Matt Ellsworth to share his expertise in Cypriot research.

Over the course of the day, we had 30 participants from as close as Virginia Beach and Norfolk, to as far away as Michigan, and even Ottawa, Canada! There was a beautiful moment where one of our parishioners from Constantinople - modern-day Istanbul, Turkey - was able to translate Turkish documents written in Greek script! These are the sort of things that can only happen through collaboration! This is the beauty of conferences and the hospitality that comes from Greek filotimo!

Despina translated several documents for Denise from Michigan

Knowing that not everyone was able to attend in person, we made all of our talks available through Facebook Live on our St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church Facebook page. These talks will be available for you to view for one week, free of charge, through Sunday, October 27, 2019.

Below is the full schedule from our Greek Genealogy Conference along with the links to the Facebook Live videos from each of the talks. I hope you will take the time to watch or re-watch these videos in the week that they'll be available!

Please note that unfortunately some of the videos did not share properly. Matt Ellsworth's presentation stopped after only a minute or two, and two others (Carol's talk on Greek Civil Records, and mine on U.S. Church Records) shared to Facebook Live only as audio. The slides do not change on the versions shared through Facebook Live. Oh the joys of technology!

Virginia Beach Greek Genealogy Conference

We had to take a selfie with our participants!

Presenters: Sam Williams, Carol Kostakos Petranek, Matt Ellsworth

Introduction to the Conference

Why Orthodox Christians Should Do Their Genealogy - Sam

Greek Genealogy Toolbox & Making connections: Internet resources - Carol

Using U. S. Records to Prepare for Research in Greece – Carol

Using DNA in Greek Genealogy – Sam

Research in Cyprus – Matt Ellsworth (Zoom meeting)
- Unfortunately, Matt's presentation did not properly share to Facebook Live.

Greek Civil Records in Archives and Town Halls - Carol
- The presentation audio is all present, but the slides do not change on Facebook Live.

Orthodox Church Records in Greece - Carol

Orthodox Church Records in the U.S. – Sam
- The presentation audio is present, but as with the Civil Records presentation, the slides do not move in the Facebook Live video.
- If you would like to view the notes from this presentation, please contact me at orthodoxgenealogist@gmail.com and I can send you a PDF of them!

*****

We hope that all of the participants left feeling filled with not only new information on records available, but also with the hope that Greek genealogy - though challenging - is not impossible for their families! It was a blessed day!

If you have any questions regarding the content, I'd love to hear from you!

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

Virtual Genealogical Association Conference

There's a saying attributed to Albert Einstein that goes, “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.” The more we dive into any particular subject, the more we realize how much there is still yet to discover and understand.

When it comes to genealogy, you might think there's a finite amount of information on any one person that you can find. You collect their birth, marriage, and death dates. What more is there to know!? Well, if you think your life could be condensed into three dates, then keep it that concise. But if you recognize that your ancestors' lives were as beautifully complex as your own, then you will need to find all of the possible records that will flesh out and paint the various scenes from their lives.

But how do we find those many, varied, records? How do we understand the different record sets, the laws that made them, and the changing borders where our ancestors lived? How do we fully utilize our DNA results to better understand our ancestors? How do we use oral history, photographs, and modern technology to discover our ancestors and involve the next generation in family history?

Wouldn't it be awesome if there were an online conference where you could learn all of those things? It can be hard to commit to a conference in another state with a limited budget. The only thing that would make an online conference even better...is if you could watch the sessions for up to six months afterwards. We all get busy, after all!

Guess what!? That conference exists and will be this November, from Friday 1 November through Sunday 3 November! And, if you register, you'll have access through 3 May 2020!!

Learn more about 2019 Virtual Genealogical Association Conference, including the list of speakers and their sessions here.

If you're a member of Virtual Genealogical Association, the cost is $59 and if you're not yet a member of VGA, it's only $79! For THREE whole days of content!!

You need to register by this Friday, 18 October! If you'd like to enter for a chance to win a FREE pass to this amazing conference, click here!! I will notify the winner by this Thursday, 17 October.

Don't forget to enter my giveaway, and then register by this Friday!! I hope to "see" you at VGA 2019!

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

Nurturing a Critical Eye

Our brains so often can play tricks on us. We're so busy multi-tasking all the time that we don't always see what's right in front of us. We're on auto-pilot, just like when we're driving a familiar road and seem to just show up at our destination. 

Take a look at the image above. How many of you noticed that "the" was repeated twice each time? Did you notice that "inform" was spelled as "informm?" This is just one example of how easy it is for our eyes to see what our brain wants to see.

When it comes to our genealogy work, and looking at the records that will unlock our family history, we need to develop and nurture a critical eye to see what is before us. If we only see what we want to see, we're going to make assumptions that may lead us down the wrong path. And in genealogy, the wrong path may mean the wrong family.

Let's look at four steps you can take to nurture a critical eye in your genealogy research. We'll look at examples from my research on John Stratton of Powhatan County, Virginia. This John is the father of David Stratton - the common ancestor from my 2019 Family Reunion.

1. Make a timeline

Our first step at nurturing a critical eye is to make a timeline. Why should you make a timeline? Doesn't Ancestry already make a timeline for you, you ask?!

We need to know everything we know about a particular person we are researching. How do we know that they are the child of their parents? How do we know they aren't being confused for a first cousin of the same name? By making a timeline, we can see where all of our documents have been found and visibly keep track of what we know - and do NOT know - about our person in question.

A few months ago, I decided to make a timeline for John Stratton of Powhatan County, Virginia. It's a working document - I add to it as I find more sources. I use Microsoft Word and organize each bit of information by year - day - month. I label each event, include bullets of information underneath, and I make a footnote with the proper citation for each event. The great thing about timelines is that they can help us to work through the first three steps of the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS). We see whether our research is thorough and reasonably exhaustive, we are able to keep complete and accurate source citations, and we can begin to analyze and correlate what we have found.

This has already borne fruit for my research. In finding John over the years, I have also been able to see how he fits into a family unit within the county. I can see all the various documents I have that include him and his family from deed books, order books, land and personal property taxes. I can see who his neighbors were and who he interacted with most in the county. As I look at my timeline, I am naturally developing and nurturing a critical eye because now I can ask myself, "What do I know and what do I not know?"

2. Resolve conflicting evidence

After we have begun to nurture our critical eye with a timeline, we'll see possible conflicting pieces of evidence. What are we going to do with that bit of evidence? Ignore it?...or will we work to resolve that conflict? It's no accident that the fourth step of the GPS is the resolution of conflicting evidence. 

In my research with John Stratton of Powhatan County, I wanted to know where exactly he lived at all times. With changing county borders, this can be a challenge, but it was vital to verify that all of the records I had for John Stratton were actually his records. In my research, I have been focusing on the research question, "Who is my John Stratton's father?"  

According to A Book of Strattons, two volumes published by Harriet Russell Stratton in 1908 and 1918, my John Stratton was the son of Thomas Stratton. But there was also a John Stratton, son of William Stratton. Since Thomas and William were brothers living in neighboring counties, how can I be sure that I wasn't confusing these two first cousins?

What I knew for certain - from my timeline - was that my John Stratton lived in what is now Powhatan County until moving to Cumberland County in 1791 where he wrote his will in 1805 and passed away by 1807.

There was only one problem, a piece of conflicting evidence that shows a John Stratton being a resident of Cumberland County in 1781. Was there a third John Stratton? How can I resolve this conflicting evidence?

3. Double check your sources

Our third step in nurturing a critical eye in genealogy is to double check our sources. Are we using an original document or is it a transcription? Could the name have been transcribed incorrectly?

What does my source say and what does it come from? First, my information comes from a transcription in a book, the second volume of The Ligon Family and Connections by William D. Ligon. In this book, on page 627, there is the text of a petition written on 16 November 1781 from the "Barracks near Cumberland Co. Ct. House." Among the signers are John Stratton and William Stratton. 

Before I went to double check my sources, I had a few hypotheses about this 1781 conundrum. My first was that perhaps these were troops from Powhatan that were travelling to Cumberland where they wrote this petition. That idea was squashed when I re-read the petition that says that the subscribers were "inhabitants of this county." Next idea? Well, it's a transcription, so I figured maybe "Stratton" was misread from "Shelton" or "Skelton" - two surnames I have seen in Cumberland County records. I knew I wouldn't know for sure until I double checked my source.

Thankfully, this book cited their source as, "Calendar of State Papers, Vol. 2, p. 604." I recently took a trip to the Library of Virginia where I found this book and voila, presto, eureka, I found something!

Do you see it? Instead of "Barracks near Cumberland Co. Ct. House," as The Ligon Family and Connections had transcribed the Calendar of State Papers, this reads, "Barracks near Cumberland O. Ct. House." Well - you might assume - this is a transcription too...so maybe William D. Ligon was correcting an error? So in double checking my source - Calendar of State Papers - I decided to check the pages before page 604 in case another document was also from the same location.

The previous document begins on page 602. Here's its heading:

This letter was written on the same day, 16 November 1781, and it's noted as being from "Cumberland Old C. H." So what's the big deal? Cumberland Old Court House must be in Cumberland County, right?

4. Analysis: What does it all mean?

We've worked with a timeline, we have found conflicting evidence, and we've double checked our sources. But what does it all mean? We need to analyze what we've found.

After looking at the Calendar of State Papers, I found that John Stratton signed a petition not at Cumberland County Court House, but at Cumberland Old Court House. Where's the Old Court House?

First, a bit of background. Powhatan County was formed in 1777 from the eastern portion of Cumberland County. Cumberland had previously been created in 1749 from the southern portion of Goochland County. So from 1749-1777, Powhatan was a part of Cumberland. And wouldn't you know it, we have a building called "Old Cumberland Courthouse" in Powhatan County?

Mosby Tavern, also called Old Cumberland Courthouse, or the Littleberry Mosby House, is a National Register of Historic Places building in Powhatan County. As the name might imply, it was the home of Littleberry Mosby and was used as the courthouse for Cumberland County while Powhatan was part of Cumberland, as well as being used as a jail, tavern, and family home. 

As I look back at the source in the Calendar of State Papers, I see that the first signature is "L. Mosby" and there is also a "Litty. Mosby Jnr." that signed. And now that the scales had fallen from my uncritical eyes, I could then see several other familiar things. Nearly all of the names I recognized as neighbors of John Stratton - not in Cumberland - in Powhatan County! How did I know they were his neighbors? Because I included all neighbors' names that were mentioned in land deeds, processionings, and those mentioned as witnessing events with John Stratton. And where did I write these details? In my timeline!

*****

We all need to nurture a critical eye when it comes to genealogical research. Otherwise, we're going to be reading one thing and recording another. We'll be assuming we know what we're looking at when we're really just confusing ourselves and our future readers. We might even be researching the wrong tree.

We can nurture a critical eye in our research by beginning a timeline - do it today, y'all! - and by working to resolve conflicts we see in our timeline. We need to double check our sources and then spend time in analysis to be clear of what we have found. And next thing you know, you'll be doing better research and working much closer to following the Genealogical Proof Standard in the process!

When I made this discovery recently that John Stratton was NOT a resident of Cumberland in 1781 - but had instead signed a petition in Powhatan County at the Old courthouse - I did a little dance right there in the Library of Virginia! And, as I feel I must do, I shared my joy with the librarian. We all need to share our success stories!

How are you nurturing a critical eye in your genealogical research? Are you using a timeline? What types of sources are you relying on that might be leading you astray?

This post was inspired by the week 19 prompt "Nurture" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

Register for RootsTech 2020!

Guess what today is, y'all!?

It's 146 days until RootsTech 2020 in Salt Lake City, Utah!

RootsTech is by far the largest genealogy event around; part conference, part family reunion, part family history mall, part concert. But 100% fun and entirely worth the trip!

As we get closer and closer to RootsTech (February 26-29, 2020) I'll be sharing blog posts about the conference, and what you can expect from speakers. And there's something more...

You have the chance of winning a free conference pass from me! You'll have to check by regularly to my blog and my Facebook page to find out how you can win your pass ($299 value).

I get to give away a free pass as part of my roll as a RootsTech 2020 Ambassador - I'm part of the media group that will be at the conference: blogging, tweeting, and posting on Instagram.

In the meantime, you can check out these links to learn more about RootsTech 2020:

- Click here to register by October 11th for the early bird price of $169!

- If you've already been to RootsTech, click here to discover what's new this year!

- Not sure what you'll learn? Find out all about class sessions and speakers here!

- But if that's not enough, discover 10 reasons why you should come to RootsTech!

Stay posted for more news on RootsTech 2020!

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

Reconstructing a Pre-1850 William Adams

Growing up, my least favorite part of every new school year was roll call. I was always at the end of the list - the curse of my "W" surname. And then, the teacher would inevitably call for me with my first name - which nobody knows me by. "Here! But, I go by Sam, please." Looks of confusion would ensue until I explained that Samuel was my middle name.

I never liked my first name. It helped me identify with my friends who had complicated or "ethnic-sounding" names. Not everyone likes to stand out. It's no surprise that immigrants changed their names after living in the United States for a bit (and no Ellis Island didn't change their name!) But for the genealogist, we yearn for different sounding names for our ancestors. Not so different that they're constantly spelled differently...but different enough that you don't have five men of the same name in the same town!

Alas, I was blessed with a family full of Williams, Adams, Smith, and the like. So what is a genealogist to do with an ancestor like "William Adams"? And worse yet, a William Adams who lived his entire life before the 1850 census that collected names according to household?

Introducing William Adams

The first I discovered that I had a William Adams ancestor was in the 1838 marriage record in Powhatan County, Virginia of my third great-grandparents Joseph Williams and Ona Ann Adams. In this record, Ona Ann's father is listed as William Adams. So I looked for William Adams' marriage record, and I found that he married Mary (Polly) Moore in Powhatan in 1801. I turned next to census records, and found only one William Adams in Powhatan County for the 1820, 1830, and 1840 U.S. censuses. Since these censuses do not list family members besides the head of household, I noted the numbers and ages of those listed in his home including the enslaved.

The 1850 U.S. census was the first to list all members of a household, but unfortunately I cannot find William Adams or his son-in-law in the 1850 census. By 1860, I see Mary Adams (presumably now a widow) living with Joseph Williams and Ona Ann in Powhatan. So why can't I find any of them in 1850? Did William Adams pass away before 1860?

Since there are no death records in this time for William, I have to turn to other records to discover more.

Where there's a will...

Though there didn't seem to be a lot of records on William Adams, he had one thing going for him: he wrote a will! And where there's a will, there's a way...to discovering our ancestors!

William Adams wrote his will in Powhatan County on 3 Jan 1843 and within his will, he mentions his children as Sarah OBryant, John Adams, William Adams, Richard J. Adams, Peter F. Adams, and Ona Ann Williams. He also includes his grandchildren John T. Moore and Catherine Watkins. Catherine Watkins was the daughter - I have since discovered - of William's daughter Pernetta who appears to have passed away before her father. I haven't discovered how John T. Moore fits into the story yet.

There are a few other nuggets of information that are hidden away in this will. The first is that William desired to have his estate kept together for ten years after his death. "At the expiration of the said ten years my will and desire is that all of my estate be divided between my beloved children and grandchildren," he goes on to write. We will see that this little detail will prove helpful in creating more records!

Did we ever discover when William passed away? The bottom of the will gives us some clues about this too. We see that on 1 Apr 1844, "the foregoing last will and testament of William Adams deceased was presented in Court and proved by the oaths of Wm. R. Moseley and Joseph Goode and the solemn affirmation of Ro. M. Moseley, the subscribing witnesses to the same, and ordered to be recorded."

This tells us that William Adams passed away between 3 Jan 1843 (when he wrote his will) and 1 Apr 1844 (when his will was proved in court). We also now have a list of three witnesses to his will: one of which - Robert M. Moseley - gave a solemn affirmation instead of an oath. Some take exception to taking oaths - particularly the Quakers - so law allows these individuals to solemnly affirm in lieu of swearing an oath. These are new individuals to research who may also have records that include my family. I also plan to look at Quaker records for Robert M. Moseley.

Taxes taxes taxes

Genealogists really ought to love taxes! I've written about them before, and I'll keep sharing how much we can find in these records. Since censuses were every ten years, tax records - both land and personal property - help fill in the gaps in the lives of our ancestors.

William Adams is found in land tax records from 1828 through 1844. In 1842, when Joseph Williams first appears paying land taxes, his property is listed as a contiguous tract - sharing a border - to William Adams. The property of William Adams was noted as being 168 1/2 acres "by deed from Edward Haskins" and connected to the estate of H. W. Watkins. In 1845, the property appears as the estate of William Adams. His widow Mary Adams begins paying taxes on her portion of the property in 1855, and the estate of William Adams continues to be taxed through 1868.

Personal property taxes are also very helpful, since all males 16 and older were included by name. William Adams appears every year in Powhatan beginning in 1802.

Militia records

In checking Powhatan County militia records, I found that William Adams appears in an 1805 Powhatan Militia list. It was an unexpected find, but fun! The record says it was "for the purpose of forming a rifle company" with William Moseley as Captain, John T. Swann as Lieutenant and Samuel Davis as Ensign.

The beauty of chancery records

If you have Virginian ancestors, I really recommend that you search the Library of Virginia's index for chancery records! For Powhatan County, you can even view the scanned records from home! And guess what? William Adams is included as the subject of two chancery files: one from 1854, another from 1860.

Within these 106 pages (of course I read them all!) of legalese, there are tons of golden nuggets about the family of William Adams. The chancery files deal with the settling of William Adams' estate. Based on his will - as you may remember - they had to wait ten years after he died before they could divide up his estate. But, William seems to have forgotten someone in his will: his wife Mary!

Mary Moore Adams was very much alive ten years after her husband when his estate was being divided between their children and grandchildren. But, William's will did not provide for her! These records show how the estate was divided to provide for her - her 1/3 due as dower rights - as well as their children. The larger chancery record also includes the names of the six people enslaved by William Adams who were divided along with his estate. [The divisions of the enslaved are mentioned on pages 33, 36, 40, 41, 44, and 47, among others.] On page 41 is a bill of sale from 1848 involving Joseph Williams - William Adams' son-in-law - selling Amy and Sam to Benjamin Watkins.

These chancery records even solved a mystery that tied together various records and DNA evidence, painting a clearer picture of my William Adams!

Lost and found cousins

From the will of William Adams, I knew that he had a son named John Adams and that he was still living in 1843 (when the will was written). But I couldn't find anything more about him. I knew there was a John Adams who married Lucy Ann Williams in 1832 in Powhatan, but I didn't know what came of him.

In my descendancy research for Joseph Williams, I found that Joseph and Ona Ann's daughter Eliza had two Adams men living with her and her husband Archer Hoye in 1860. They're listed as being born in Tennessee, one is William Adams, a 17 year old nail cutter, and the other is "A Adams" a 22 year old sailor. I didn't think anything more about them because they were born in Tennessee and because the 1860 census didn't note relationships to the head of household.

But then, I read the chancery records involving William Adams! And they confirmed that "A Adams" was Aurelius and that he had a brother named Marcus. Their father was John Adams who had passed away by about 1853. That means that William and Aurelius were first cousins to Eliza, with whom they were living in 1860. But I never would have discovered their relationship - or where John Adams went off to (Tennessee!) - without chancery records!

Road Trips and DNA

Over the years, in building my list of DNA descendants of Joseph Williams and Ona Ann Adams, I have connected online with some of my DNA cousins of William Adams. Two of these I had the pleasure to meet in person this July!

Earlier in the month, I finally got to meet Donna Adams McGrath! She is descended from William's son John Adams, through William Marion Adams. That's the William Adams who was living with his cousin Eliza I just mentioned. We suspect that John Adam's wife Lucy Ann Williams was also the sister of my Joseph Williams. [This is going to take more time to prove though!] Donna and I are 4th cousins once-removed - she and my dad are 4th cousins. She came down to Virginia Beach with her husband John and we had a great lunch together at the Bread Box Cafe.

This past summer, I led a service trip to Tijuana and on my way south I was able to meet with another William Adams descendant in San Diego! Joan Adams-Reynolds descends from William's son William Adams Jr. and is my 5th cousin. We met while my group enjoyed delicious tacos from Tacos el Gordo. It was great seeing Joan on the other side of the country!

Not only had our traditional genealogy research brought us together, but DNA evidence has also linked us as family. Our shared DNA, along with shared DNA matches connect us as sharing William Adams as our common ancestor.

It just took a few road trips and nearly 200 years to bring our family back together again!

*****

It can be a challenge researching ancestors with common names, especially before 1850. But no challenge should make us give up seeking our ancestors and telling their stories!

We can put down on paper all that we know about them, noticing all the little details in these records, and look for them in new record sets we might just have to dig for. Through our research, we may even get to meet distant cousins on road trips and find that our ancestors have stuck around in the gifts they've passed on to us, hidden in our DNA!

This post was inspired by the week 18 prompt "Road Trip" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

A DNA Inspired Family Reunion - Part 3

This is the last post in a three part series about my DNA inspired family reunion. If you missed the first two posts, you can check out Part 1 by clicking here, and Part 2 here.

In Part 1, we looked at the process I took to identify DNA cousins, confirm our common ancestors, and plan the event that brought us all together for the first time. In Part 2, we looked at the evidence that proves we are family, that none of us are out of place. And in this post, Part 3, we'll see how the reunion went and how a place of worship became our place of reconnection.

The game plan

The structure for the family reunion was pretty simple: eat, presentation, fellowship, field trip.

As people arrived to the fellowship hall at the church, they signed in with a sign-in sheet I had made in advance. It had their name, address, phone number, and e-mail address. If a section was missing, I asked if they would fill in the information. This is helpful because now I have a better resource for next year's reunion. Also, now we can keep in touch better!

Next, I gave them a name tag with different colored stars for them to put next to their name. The original idea - as I wrote in Part 2 - was that there'd be families from different branches of my great-grandparents' family. This helps everyone have a visual - "oh you have a blue star too!? We're cousin through the ____ family!"

Since it was a potluck lunch, we wanted to start with the food. For a reunion with (mostly) Southerners, I knew food wouldn't be a problem! And I wasn't wrong.

We had chicken, macaroni and cheese, green beans, sandwiches, sides galore, and tasty desserts! And...you better believe we had sweet tea. Because Virginia, y'all!

Once everyone had finished eating, I began a short presentation explaining how everyone in the room was related. I had my laptop and projector, so I was able to project my family tree onto a screen for all to see. I talked about David Stratton and his ancestors; where they had come from in Chesterfield before moving to what became Powhatan County. I explained that David had been married twice - to Susanna Norris and then to Jordenia E. Hopkins. And then I explained the story of Kate and her mother Sally.

It's hard to condense years of research of a complicated story into minutes of an easy to understand explanation, but I tried by best.

Three Branches

For our first reunion, I'd say attendance was pretty good! We had 40 people - including spouses and kids. Together, we represent the three branches of David Stratton's family through three women: Susanna Norris, Sally, and Jordenia E. Hopkins.

David Stratton fathered a lot of children over a long period of time. His last child was born when he was 64 years old! His first marriage began in 1808 and produced six children. Most of these children moved west to Alabama and then to Kentucky. One of them, Mary Elizabeth Stratton, returned to Powhatan where she raised her children. Three descendants of Mary Elizabeth came to the reunion.

Kate Stratton was born after Susanna's children, in about 1830. Descendants of two of Kate's children were able to make it: even Trisha made the trek from Maryland for the special day!

After Susanna, David married Jordenia E. Hopkins in 1832, which produced seven children! Descendants of three of these children were at the reunion: Louisa, Edmonia, and Douglas. I wrote about Douglas in a post entitled Douglas E Stratton: A Bachelor by Law. We even had a more distant cousin - descended from a first cousin of David Stratton who stopped by on her way to New Jersey (a special shout out to Sally!!)

Family rediscovered

After working to discover the story about Kate and her family, it was a joy to get to meet some of her descendants. And since discovering the story about Douglas and his daughter Suvella (make sure you click on the link to his story above!), I was thrilled that three of her grandsons came as well - from North Carolina and New Jersey! In the photo above, there are four descendants of Jordenia E. Hopkins (three from Douglas E. Stratton and one from Edmonia - yours truly!) and one from Kate.

And no family reunion in the 21st century would be complete without a selfie.

I also just couldn't handle there being anyone not in the group photo - thanks Jerry for the official group shot! 

Family memory

One of the benefits of collaboration in family history is that you get to harness the power of memories that are passed down from person to person. For whatever reason, my line of David Stratton seems to have forgotten all of these stories...but that's not the case of Mary Elizabeth's descendants!

Matilda and Frances Hicks

Not only do the descendants of Mary Elizabeth Stratton have memories that have been passed on - stories and traditions - but they have furniture, a family Bible, family records, and photographs!

In the photos above, you can see two of Kate Stratton's daughters: Matilda and Frances Hicks. The photo of Frances was passed on in the family of Mary Elizabeth. They called her Aunt Frankie. It was a special moment for these two sides of David Stratton's family to meet, and for Frances' descendants to be able to see her face for the first time.

Remembering the departed

Remembrance is a powerful thing. Meeting long-lost family, speaking the names of our ancestors, learning their stories, and visiting their graves are all a part of this remembrance. And who doesn't love a field trip, right?

So before we finished our reunion, we had one last thing to do: honor our family by placing flowers on their graves. We headed out to the Hague cemetery where Louisa Stratton and her family are buried. Her sister Susan is buried there too, and interestingly enough so are some of Kate's descendants.

There, in the same clearing that is the overgrown Stratton family cemetery is the grave of Rosa Bates, the daughter of Frances Hicks - Aunt Frankie.

It may be that these were once two cemeteries - one white, one black - or perhaps they were always together. Today, weathered by time and covered by an encroaching forest, our Stratton family - both black and white - stands together in those Powhatan County woods.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't honor my great-grandparents once more: Arthur Lewis Williams and Mary Susan Wooldridge. The flowers we used to decorate for the reunion were put to use again - to decorate the graves of our loved ones. The church that was once the center of my great-grandparent's lives, Graceland Baptist, has now became the home of a new tradition - the Williams and Wooldridge Family Reunion!

With that said - family! - mark your calendars for our second annual reunion:

June 20, 2020!

*****

My family has lost a generation of family reunion memories, but I think it's safe to say we've brought the tradition back. We will never know why those reunions really stopped, or if my great-grandmother knew about her cousin Suvella, or her cousins through Kate. We will never know how David grappled with the reality of a family blended across the line of slavery, or what it was like having to live with secrets that everyone seemed to understand already.

I'm grateful today though that we have the opportunity - through records and through DNA evidence, through laws and a country driven to continually improve - and the blessing to be able to call one another family and to move forward making new memories for the generations to come!

This post was inspired by the week 17 prompt "At Worship" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

A DNA Inspired Family Reunion - Part 2

When I set out to organize a family reunion for my great-grandparents' family, I hoped I'd get cousins to come from all different parts of their family. I specifically chose Powhatan County for our reunion because all of the grandparents of my great-grandparents lived in Powhatan. My roots in Powhatan go deep, y'all! My great-grandfather - Arthur Lewis Williams - was a Williams, Adams, Barley, and Wilburn; my great-grandmother - Mary Susan Wooldridge - was a Wooldridge, Beazley, Stratton, and Hopkins. 

Over the years, I've made connections with second to fourth cousins that share all of these various family lines. But when all was said and done, the common connection for everyone that came to the family reunion this year was the Stratton family. We are all descended from one man: David Stratton (1787-1871) of Powhatan County. 

In the first post of this three part series, we looked at the process I took to identify DNA cousins, confirm our common ancestors, and plan the event that brought us all together for the first time. In this post, we'll look at the evidence that proves we are family, that none of us is out of place, that we all belong as Strattons.

Stratton family DNA research

With organization comes clarity. And this was all too true for my work with the Stratton family. Last year, I began making a DNA chart  - as I describe in Organizing DNA Matches - for descendants of the Stratton family from Powhatan County, Virginia. Since then, I've developed an evolving list of 146 people (so far) who qualify with all three criteria: they have been DNA tested, they descend from the Stratton family from Powhatan, and they match other Stratton descendants. 

I work primarily - but not exclusively - with AncestryDNA because they have the largest database of DNA-tested individuals. So when a new person shows up in my aunt or my dad's DNA match list, I first look at their "Shared Matches" tab. Since I have my matches organized, I can quickly see if they're matching other Stratton descendants. My next task is to figure out who this match is and how they fit into my tree. Once I've figured that out, I include their line in my tree - which my Aunt Patsy calls my family "forest" - and I add them to my Stratton DNA Project chart.

The denser my "Family Forest" has gotten, and the more confirmed Stratton DNA matches I've identified, the easier it is to see if a new match is a Stratton relative. But genealogy is all about family - not just names and dates - so we need to collaborate and connect with our matches.

Facebook collaboration

You never know when and where you'll meet that previously unknown cousin with a golden nugget of family history knowledge, a photo of an ancestor, or a Family Bible. Facebook is a great place to make these connections with family, to collaborate with others with a shared surname or with people from the same ancestral area. And on 28 July 2015, I learned something through Facebook about David Stratton that has propelled my Stratton research and has expanded my family in ways I never thought possible.

Hoping to make some Powhatan County connections, I providentially joined a Facebook group called Powhatan County, VA Genealogy. I made a post to the group listing the surnames of my ancestors from Powhatan, and just hoped to find some distant cousins. Well, two minutes later, I got a response from Trisha who shared something I wasn't expecting! 

She told me she's a descendant of Kate Stratton, a woman who had once been enslaved by my ancestor David Stratton. 

Kate Stratton & Holman Hicks

I had so many questions. How did Trisha know that David Stratton had enslaved Kate? Had Trisha been DNA tested? Were we related?

I began to research Kate Stratton, and soon I saw that she was indeed connected to my family. I started to incorporate her and her family into my family tree, although not connected to the Strattons just yet. Instead, I added her and her husband, Holman Hicks, and their children and then worked on researching their descendants. The birth records for Kate's children during the period of their enslavement show that they were indeed enslaved by David Stratton in Powhatan County. At the time, there was only one David Stratton in the county and in the 1870 Census (the first after the fall of slavery), the Hicks family was enumerated only four families before my David Stratton. 

And then Trisha's mom's DNA results came back. And guess what? She matched my aunt, and her shared DNA matches with her were all Stratton descendants. As time went on, more and more descendants of Kate Stratton popped up in our DNA match lists. The highest match so far is a cousin L.C. who shares 65 cM across three DNA segments with both my aunt and dad. His great-grandmother was Kate's daughter Matilda Hicks. Matilda's birth was recorded in the Powhatan County list of births as being in Nov 1856, the daughter of Kate, and enslaved by David Stratton. Looking at L.C.'s shared matches with my aunt, the first seven matches are all descended from David Stratton. Nine others, more distant matches, are descendants of David Stratton's siblings, while still others are descended from David's first cousins. 

If Kate Stratton was enslaved by David Stratton, and her descendants are DNA matches to known descendants of David, how exactly were David and Kate related?

Acceptance

No one wants to accept that their ancestors participated in arguably one of the worst community sins of this country's history: chattel slavery. Fewer still want to admit that their male ancestors may have taken sexual advantage of enslaved women: people whose very station as personal property gave them no voice to say yes or no. So how was I to interpret the story of David and Kate? What was David's relationship with Kate's mother?

Kate was born - based on census and death records - about 1830 in Powhatan County. This would place her birth around the time David's first wife Susanna Norris passed away and right before he married his second wife (my ancestor) Jordenia Hopkins. From Kate's death record, we learn that Kate's mother was named Sally. Do we have evidence that David ever enslaved a woman named Sally? In this case, it was important to look at records of other families connected to David.

The 1815 will of Thomas Norris - the father of David's first wife Susanna - reveals that Susanna inherited an enslaved woman named Sally. The will also mentions some of Sally's children - including Reuben and Fleming, uncommon names we also see (perhaps coincidentally) repeated several times in the descendants of Kate Stratton. This means that David Stratton did in fact have in his household a woman named Sally by 1815. 

Additionally, descendants of four of Kate's children share DNA with a long list of David Stratton's descendants. This isn't an isolated event - such as a distant descendant of only one child of Kate matching one of David's descendants. Instead, descendants of four of her children match known descendants of several different children of David Stratton, as well as descendants of David's siblings, and first cousins. Genealogical research proves that Kate was enslaved by David Stratton. Genetic genealogy proves that Kate's descendants are genetically related to descendants of David Stratton. So was Kate the daughter of David Stratton? 

Reason says yes, and acceptance has given my family the gift of newfound long-lost family.

*****

Thorough research of both paper records and inherited DNA has given me a much richer view of my Stratton heritage. A family that before I had known only through the research of others has become fuller because of my own research and being open to collaboration. Since I first discovered David Stratton's link to slavery - not only through records but now as a connection to living descendants of those he enslaved - my genealogical research is substantially deeper, more three-dimensional, more contextual. 

My questions today no longer stop at names and dates of my family but reach out to find the names and stories of those so often forgotten but whose names are hidden away in wills and deeds, tax records and chancery records - the many men, women, and children who were enslaved by my family. But sometimes they too - as we have seen - turn out to be my family. And by God's grace - and with modern technology - we are beginning to reconnect, and discover who our ancestors were and what family means for us today in the 21st century.

I hope you'll come back for Part 3, when we'll see how the reunion went - for all three branches of David Stratton's family (see the image above to see how we're all connected) - and how a place of worship became our place of reconnection.

This post was inspired by the week 16 prompt "Out of Place" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

A DNA Inspired Family Reunion - Part 1

Only recently, as a genealogist, have I come to terms with my evolving sense of family. Some grow up in large families woven together by patriarchs and matriarchs, stitched to one another through holidays and family reunions. Others, like me, grow up distant from extended family: more familiar with funerals than planned quality time with extended family.

But there's only so many funerals you can go to hearing the familiar refrain, "We really ought to get together for a happy occasion for a change!" before you decide something's just got to be done.

So, that's what I did! I planned a family reunion this year for the cousins and descendants of my great-grandparents Arthur Lewis Williams and Mary Susan Wooldridge of Powhatan County, Virginia. But this reunion was more than a family reunion; it was a rediscovery of family, a meeting for the first time of cousins - from across the man-made divisions of race and ethnicity - who had never before had the honor of knowing one another.

And it's a reunion that would have never been possible, if not for the affordability of DNA testing and the accessibility of genealogical records. 

In this post, we'll look at the process I took to identify DNA cousins, confirm our common ancestors, and plan the event that brought us all together for the first time. In Part 2, we'll look at the evidence that proves that none of us are out of place, that we're family. And in Part 3, we'll see how the reunion went and how a house of worship became our place of discovery and reconnection as family.

Identifying DNA matches

Apart from my dad's siblings and first cousins, everyone else at our family reunion this year was found through DNA testing. So how exactly does this work and how can we be so sure we're actually related?

We first need to understand some of the basics of DNA. Take a look at my post about descendancy research and DNA for a primer. But the important concept to remember is that in every cell in our bodies, we have DNA that we inherited from each of our parents. And while half of our DNA came from each of our parents, we did *not* inherit the other half of their DNA. That means that half of what they inherited from their parents did not get passed on to us. Why does this matter? Because it affects how much DNA from any particular ancestor is passed on to their descendants. When that ancestor lived can then be deduced by comparing how much DNA two of their descendants share with one another. 

When you take an autosomal DNA test from AncestryDNA, they provide a list of DNA matches organized from the closest family members to the most distant. But how do they figure out the estimated relationship between you and a match? It's based on the amount of shared DNA, measured in centimorgans (cM). The higher the number of cM, the more DNA is shared, the higher the likelihood they share a more recent ancestor. Here's a fun shared cM tool you can use to see the possible relationships you could have with a given DNA match based on your shared cM of DNA.

Now that we can look at our DNA match lists and see how DNA testing companies - Ancestry, MyHeritage, 23andme, FamilyTreeDNA, LivingDNA - organize our matches, let's see how I was able to confirm relationships with those I invited to our 2019 family reunion!

Confirming common ancestors

When it came to identifying my dad's DNA cousins on the Williams and Wooldridge sides, I had to start with his closest matches - those with the highest shared cM of DNA - and figure out how he's connected to each of them. It helps to begin with first cousin matches first since you can more easily determine which side of your family they connect to you through. Then it's a matter of finding who in your match list connects to both you and your first cousins, second cousins, etc.

This is where organization really matters. How am I going to keep track of these cousins? How can I keep all these names straight? I wrote a piece on organizing DNA matches, which I recommend you check out. Since the time I wrote it in December 2018, AncestryDNA has put out some new tools which have updated how I organize my matches within their system. Now, I can also organize my DNA matches with different colored dots that I have labeled with the names of different ancestors. For some matches, if I haven't proven the connection yet - I'll label them with a particular color that shows a suspected relationship so I can come back to the match later. 

In my dad's case, both he and one of his sisters have DNA tested with AncestryDNA. Additionally, three first cousins - who share Arthur Lewis Williams and Mary Susan Wooldridge - have also tested at the same company. So I was able to quickly narrow down the large list of DNA matches to those who share the ancestors of my great-grandfather or my great-grandmother. 

Planning the reunion

Sometimes you just have to make something happen - or else it never will. When it comes to family reunions, it's a matter of finding a few dates that work with key players (family you know you can count on to come), finding a location, and reserving the space. I knew I wanted to do our reunion at Graceland Baptist Church, because it was the church my great-grandparents and grandparents attended and where they all are buried. 

After I had the date and the location reserved, I made a free flyer with postermywall and an online form that family could use to RSVP for the reunion. I used Google Forms this year, but I plan to use SignUpGenius next year because of the different ways you can adapt the form for your event's needs. You can see a cropped version of the flyer I made above (the full form includes a link to RSVP and my contact information).

I also made a Facebook event and invited as many of my family members whom I have as Facebook friends. I included the link to the sign up, I shared the flyer on the page, I posted regular reminders about the reunion, and I asked everyone to invite their sides of the family. I also sent the flyer out by e-mail to more distant family members that I had connected with online, and mailed the flyer to family whose mailing addresses my aunt already had. The event was planned as a potluck so we reserved plenty of time so we could relax and get to know one another. 

All that was left was to wait and hope people would come!

*****

Planning a family reunion takes a lot of determination, stubbornness, and being completely comfortable with being (potentially) annoying to close and distant relatives in the process. Before this reunion, I thought it was just my generation (I'm a Millennial) that was bad at RSVPing and committing to events, but I've decided it's just a 21st century issue more generally. But none of this DNA inspired family reunion would have been possible without first identifying DNA matches and confirming our common ancestors. 

But how do lists of DNA matches, organized by dots and charts, lead to newfound family enough for a reunion? How does a group of strangers develop a sense of family just by taking a DNA test? 

Stay tuned for Part 2 to find out!

This post was inspired by the week 15 prompt "DNA" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

Why Genealogists Ought to Love Taxes

There's something ingrained within the American psyche that loves to hate taxes. Perhaps it's the Boston Tea Party, perhaps it's our Founding Father's distrust for central government, or maybe we just don't like giving up what's ours! Either way, taxation doesn't exactly summon happy feelings, does it?

It's not surprising then, that genealogists aren't always jumping up and down to dive into tax records. Taxes aren't as glamorous as marriage records, not as revealing as death records, and not as exciting as wills or inventories.

But tax records come with their own, varied, sets of information that can prove vital to the eventual crumbling of our ancestors' brick walls. To show how illuminating tax records can be, let's look at some records of various Williams men from Powhatan, Virginia. We've already looked at land tax records, so in this post we will investigate the roll of personal property taxes in the case of a brick wall ancestor.

Why should genealogists love taxes? What can personal property tax records tell us that we don't already know? In this case, we'll see how personal property tax records can help us determine the father of Joseph Williams.

Census substitute

Census records are vital to creating a firm foundation for our family history research. The only problem is that they only happen every ten years! How many places have you lived in the last decade? If you were to rely on records of my residence from only 2009 and 2019, you'd assume I had never left Virginia. But within that decade, I've lived in three other states - and multiple apartments on top of that! You see, a lot can happen within a decade.

For Powhatan County during the 19th century, we have the federal census available for the following years: 1810, 1820, 1830, 1840, 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880. Some states filled in these gaps with state censuses, but Virginia did not - with the exception for some counties from between 1782-1786. That's where personal property tax records come in. They help identify who was living in a county over a certain age in any particular year. And instead of being only every ten years like a census, personal property taxes were recorded every year!

And like census records, personal property taxes are filled with clues and details that flesh out the lives of our ancestors.

Goldmine of clues

Personal property tax records can serve as a yearly census substitute. But they're also filled with all sorts of clues that can lead us down the right path of revealing our ancestors' mysterious forefathers.

In personal property taxes from Powhatan County, Virginia from 1831 and before, we are given the following information:
- the name of persons chargeable with the tax
- the number of enslaved above 12 years old
- the number of horses mares, mules and colts
- the number of stud horses and jackasses
- the value of any 2 wheel carriages (gigs) or 4 wheel carriages
- the date the information was received

Here's an example of the heading for personal property taxes from 1831 Powhatan County:

Beginning in 1832, Powhatan County personal property taxes give us a tad more information. But the details make all the difference! See if you can notice the extra bits of gold they might offer:

Did you notice what's new? In addition to listing the name of the person responsible for the tax, beginning in 1832, we now have a number of white males above 16 years old. Why might this be important? Because as young men get older, they'll begin to show up within their father's household. Then they'll move out and be taxed separately by name. This can be used in coordination with 1830 and 1840 federal census lists which designate the number of individuals by age range.

Additionally, with the 1832 personal property tax records we now have an additional listing for those enslaved over the age of 16. We also have the number of free negroes and mulattoes. For some years, free people of color are listed on their own, while in other years they seem to appear within the households of white families only to reappear in later tax lists.

Case study: Joseph Williams

Knowing now that genealogists should love what personal property tax records have to offer, how can we actually *use* these rich record sets? Let's look at some clues I've gathered relating to my ancestor Joseph Williams.

Since I knew that Joseph Williams married Ona Ann Adams in 1838 in Powhatan, I first looked for him in the personal property taxes for that year. 

Joseph Williams appears here in Powhatan County, along with James H Williams and George W Williams. From 1838, I checked the 1837 tax list to see if Joseph appeared there too.

But Joseph Williams isn't in the 1837 list. This page shows only John Williams and James H Williams, and on the page before, there's George W Williams. So Joseph isn't in the 1837 list but a new person, John Williams, is there. But do you see the curious new detail next to John Williams? There are two white men above 16 years old. Could this John Williams be the father of Joseph Williams? For the years 1834 through 1837, John Williams lists two men over the age of 16. John Williams then does not appear in the personal property tax records for Powhatan County in 1838, 1839, or 1840.

From 1832 - when the tax lists began listing numbers of men over 16 - until John Williams last appears in 1837, there are only four white Williams men listed by name in Powhatan County: John, George W, Henry, and James H Williams. Only John Williams lists more than one white male over 16 years of age during that time period, and he does so beginning in 1834.

So what does all this mean?

Well, we've either struck gold, or I'm playing in fool's gold! So let's reevaluate what we know so far.

Federal census records consistently record the date of birth for Joseph Williams as 1817. We know that he married in 1838 in Powhatan. And we know that the first time there was another Williams male over 16 years old in the household of John Williams was in 1834. This unknown Williams male would have been born about 1818 and - assuming there weren't different men over the age of 16 growing up and leaving the county each year - this same man lived with John through 1837.

When Joseph begins to show up in the personal property tax records in 1838, John Williams is no longer living in Powhatan. Therefore, we seem to have three options as to the relationship between Joseph and John Williams.

1. Joseph Williams is the son of John Williams, and John passed away between 27 Apr 1837 (the date John's taxes were recorded) and 29 Mar 1838 (the date Joseph's taxes were recorded).

2. Joseph Williams is the son of John Williams, and John left the county in 1837.

3. Joseph Williams moved to Powhatan between 27 Apr 1837 and 29 Mar 1838 from another county.

Whew! Who knew you could find out so much just by looking at personal property tax records!?

*****

Nobody likes to pay personal property taxes. Mine always seem to sneak up on me each year. But these same taxes leave crumbs along the way, evidence of where I've lived from year to year. They fill in the spaces from one federal census to the next. And, in the case of Joseph Williams from Powhatan County, his personal property taxes might even have identified his father!

We genealogists really ought to love taxes...well, at least the record of when our ancestors paid theirs!

Have you ever used personal property tax records for your brick wall ancestors? How might you use tax records as a census substitute? 

This post was inspired by the week 14 prompt "Brick Wall" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

*Photo by Randy Fath on Unsplash*