Southerners are known for being obsessed with clinging to the past, to our traditions, and to our family. When I was younger, I would sit with my Mamaw on her front porch in the swing. All of the serious talking was done there. We would spend hours watching cars pass and discussing everything outside her rural home.
During these times I learned about her mother’s family. They were Swedish. Her mother’s mother lived with their family after her husband had died. She was strict and humorless. You could see the Swedishness in my grandma’s face. She had ivory skin and beautiful hazel eyes.
She would tell me about her father who was a full-blooded Irishman and a stonemason in Winchester Kentucky. Henry Martin had built churches all over central Kentucky. I had met my great grandfather but I was only a few months old so I don’t recall the event.
The stories she would tell me as well as my other grandparents gave me a thirst for knowing those who came before me. Years later, I wanted to know about these people and got my first Ancestry account, where I caught the genealogy bug.
Family history is often a mystery to us. While we may know our grandparents, we often don’t know the generations before them. How did they live, what did they do, and if they came to another land, why? Genealogy allows us to study them and get the answers to these questions. Genealogy is a combination of research skills, detective skills, and presentation skills. It requires a lot of time reviewing old records to find a specific person just like a detective might do.
Through this website, I hope to share not only the genealogy of my family but also the story of my Kentucky family.
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