Genealogy Reveals Your Family – It Also Tells Their Stories

If you follow me, you already know that I am committed to learning my genealogy. I love finding new family members or some fun fact about an ancestor. My sister and I had such fun going graveyard-hopping in south Alabama for a few years. We took our Daddy, in his 80s at that time, and my youngest son who was about 9 or 10 when we first began our search.

We learned a lot during those trips. Neither of us knew much about our family. We knew Granddaddy DuPree had a not-so-happy life, but we didn’t know the depths of it until we found records that backed up things that were never talked about. Don’t be surprised about the things you may learn in searching for your roots. Some of it is going to be shocking. At least it has been for Sis and me and for many people I know.

Genealogy Reveals Your Family - It Also Tells Their Stories @DDuPreeWilliams #family #genealogy #writing Share on X

MAKING CONNECTIONS – MAMA’S SIDE

Sis and I knew nothing about Mama’s family. We knew our first cousins, but that was about it. We had no idea that many of the older people we visited were our Granny’s stepchildren.  Mama’s daddy was 48 and her mother was a month shy of 20 when they married.  His first wife had died and he had little children. Like so many back in those days, he needed help raising his small children. Grandpa died when Mama and her twin sister were not quite 8. She knew her half-siblings from Grandpa’s first marriage. She was the last of about 17 children for him.

It’s amazing the things one uncovers when delving into genealogy. The advent of DNA testing has brought about even more discoveries. The internet has made collaboration a much easier endeavor. I learned about Mama being descended from the Nansemond Indian Nation by means of a cousin who sent me his records. If her family knew of this connection, they didn’t talk about it. Some things simply weren’t talked about in those days. If you knew what all we learaned about how they lost or had to hide their identities, you’d be appalled. Google a man, Walter Plecker. Horrible man.

MORE CONNECTIONS – PAPA’S SIDE

I learned about Daddy’s connection to the Lanier/Bassano families through new cousins too. When Sissy and I set out to find graves of our grandparents and on back, we had no idea of what doors God would eventually open to us, and to me. It was during our search for the grave of our great-grandmother, Josephine Dell DuPree, that we discovered all the information about Granddaddy and his connection to the Lanier and Bassano families.

This information, and the grave we still haven’t located, became the basis for the plot of my first book, Grave Consequences, A Charlotte Graves Mystery. I used what we learned about Grandma Josie to tell the story of one Josie Jones Lanier. I kept family names, and even called her Josie, like my great-grandmother, in the book.

For book two, I used the family connection to Emelia Bassano Lanier as the source of one subplot in book two, Grave Decisions. By this time, I’d made connections with many cousins, one who lives in Australia, Dr. Peter D. Matthews, who writes about the Lanier/Bassano family and even has a podcast about them.

Dr. Matthews believes that Aunt Emelia, as my family calls her (she’s my 10-times great-aunt) is the true author of all the Shakespearean sonnets, and that she and her kinsmen are likely the authors of the plays, with The Tempest and possibly Othello having been written by my aunt. Many of the plays contain Italian, which she and her family certainly knew.  They refer to certain aspects of Judaism (they were Kabbalists, Jewish Mysticism), and they all had extensive vocabularies from knowing many languages and being highly educated, which Shakespeare was not. They were artists, musicians (see Nicholas Lanier, Master of the King’s Music), and writers (Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, by Emelia Bassano Lanyere, how her name appears on the cover).

MY ROOTS PROVIDED ANOTHER STORY

Book three, Grave Risk, due out soon, is the result of research, and brainstorming with a dear friend. I grew up in the lovely little south Alabama town of Andalusia. What a wonderful place to have spent my formative years. I still have dear friends from my years there. I return as often as I can.

My fictional town of Loblolly is loosely based on Andalusia. I had no idea about the events, real ones in part, that I highlight in this book. I never heard those stories when I lived there. We moved just before I entered the fourth grade, my sister, the eleventh.

GOD-INCIDENCES

And, speaking of Andalusia, my mother-in-law and I graduated from Andalusia High School, twenty-eight years apart. My mother sponsored my husband’s grandmother in her ladies’ club.

Just so many crazy God-incidences, as I call them. It is through finding members of my husband’s extended family that I learned of his connection to Lt. Col. William Barret Travis, commander of the American troops at The Alamo. It is through information given to me by one of Hubby’s cousins that I was able to prove a lateral line to WBT for him to join the Alamo Defenders Descendants Association.

These little stories are just the tip of the iceberg of where genealogy can take one.  Researching one’s roots is one of the most worthwhile things I think we can do. I love knowing the personal stories of my ancestors. I love knowing their blood still flows within my, my children’s, and my granddaughter’s veins.

If you’d like to begin a genealogy journey. Contact me. I will give you a few helpful tips.

I must say, my most-cherished connection is knowing that I am a Child of the King, Jesus. Can you say that about yourself? If you aren’t sure, contact me and let’s talk. I’d love to have you join me for all eternity.

 

Blessings, y’all!

I’ve never heard this one. Don’t know the group. Powerful. Hard to find songs about genealogy. This works for me. Pray it blesses you!!