How would you like written narrative of your family’s story, placed in historical context, complete with pictures and perhaps even put into a cool slide show with music? I can do that for you.
Getting the family narrative down is usually the hardest part.
After my grandmother Nanny died my brother bought and then lived in her house for many years. Now I had been in and out of Nanny’s attic a hundred times helping her with this and that, so it rather surprised me when my brother sold the house in the mid 90′s that he discovered a large footlocker and a suitcase in the attic. They were filled with photos and letters going back to the late 1800′s. I really have no idea how I missed seeing that footlocker and suitcase over the years.
Somehow I ended up with all the material from her attic, and I had no idea who most of the people were in the pictures. The suitcase belonged to an elderly cousin on the Gillespie side of the family who had lived with my grandmother for some time until her death in in 1977. The chest was filled with items from my grandmother’s Andrews line and some things from her husband Curtis Gillespie’s line as well.
Well, I set aside and studied all the material that I could identify. I began to use online tools to piece together bits and pieces of the story. I spent hours on Ancestry.com and in genealogy forums and wrote many letters to historical societies here and there and slowly began to get a sense of the story of my family. I discovered four living second cousins on the Gillespie side who then were able to help me even by looking at scanned photos on my Flickr site. Three of them I have met and spoken to several times now. And I made a trip to Georgia to see my grandmother’s surviving half sister as well as her surviving sister in law. I took the trunk with me and they helped answer a bunch of questions. it was great to reconnect with them as well.
This wonderful journey of discovery enabled me to learn a great deal about the science and art of genealogy. In addition I began getting equipment which would allow for faithful and safe scanning and restoration of so many old and treasured photographs.
So, if you want to know more about your family’s background, perhaps discover second, third, and fourth cousins, make high quality scans of old family photographs, create online photo albums to share with extended family across the world, have a written narrative of your family’s history, I can help you.
Contact me at gillespie.joel@gmail.com or call me at 336-207-0196 and let’s start a conversation about how I may help you with your family history.
