Family Connections

Last Sunday I went to visit my aunt Mary Frances.  She lives in a "rehabilitation center" just east of here.  She's in her late 80's and in very poor health.  Its very painful for her to be mobile.  She always has such a great attitude in spite of it all.

One of the things that keeps me busy is genealogy.  I've been working on Mary Frances's family history and have had some degree of success.  I wanted to share it with her but short of printing a ream of paper (which would have been way too much for her and whole lot more money than I had to spend), I didn't know how to bring it to her.  Last week I asked if someone from my church group could lend me their laptop so I could show her roots to her.  I had a phone call and an email offering me to use a laptop from a couple of different people from church and then on Sunday I was sitting in a class when a wonderful couple brought theirs in for me to use.  I really have a great church family.  Anyway, I borrowed a laptop and took it to see Mary Frances.

My great grandfather left Arkansas and moved to Texas and never looked back.  No one knew anything about his family.  A few years back I met a man who was also working on Stewart genealogy and found the connection to Arkansas.  Willis was excited to find me because the Arkansas family were wondering what had become of my grandfather and his descendants.  Willis had published a book on the Stewart family history and I bought a copy.

I took the laptop and the book for Mary Frances to see.  She was overwhelmed to see her family.  The book had pictures of family she had never met. I use RootsMagic as a genealogy software and I was able to show her family connections over many generations.  It was an amazing experience to share this with her.