Let Your Voice be Heard

By Debra DuPree Williams @DDuPreeWilliams

Greetings to all my friends. I want to thank you for so faithfully reading my blog posts. Words cannot express how deeply I appreciate each one of you.

I didn’t enter this writing world lightly. I began writing when I was a child. I poured over Childcraft books and tried my hand at poetry from the time I could write. When I was in the seventh grade, I wrote my first novel. But then, life took over. I went away to college, got married, had kids and didn’t really write during those later years until those kids went to school.

Giving Thanks--Generation to Generation

By Debra DuPree Williams @DDuPreeWilliams

Y’all know that one of my favorite things is genealogy. Finding my ancestors has become not just a hobby, but a life-long quest for my sister and me.

Sis and I talk every day, first thing in the morning, which for us is usually somewhere between eight and nine. I am not an early morning person unless I have to be. Of course, we always talk about our kids and our grandkids, and in her case, her soon-to-be eight great-grands. Wow!

Another thing you know about me is that this November, for the first time, I am participating in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, the object of which is to get fifty-thousand words written—a good start for a novel. I got a bit of a late start, but I’ve managed to have somewhere around forty-thousand words in book two of my Charlotte Graves series, when you add my NaNo words to my already-written words.

But, while I’ve been writing a novel, many of you have been writing about things you are thankful for. I’ve really enjoyed reading your posts. Among those of you doing this is my niece, Shelly Foshee. She is my sister’s daughter-in-love. Shelly is an amazing woman, one whom I wish all of you could know. She is daughter, wife, mother, and now, Nana. Add to those, student, nurse, teacher, mentor, intercessor, prayer-warrior. You get the picture. Busy.

Roots Run Deep and Hold Fast

By Debra DuPree Williams @DDuPreeWilliams

This coming weekend promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime event. My husband and I are celebrating our anniversary. As part of our celebrations we will be traveling to Suffolk, Virginia, where we will be joined by our eldest son and his younger daughter. The four of us will be attending the 31^st annual Pow Wow of the Nansemond Indian Nation. The place of my roots.

Y’all know that I’m a big proponent of tracking one’s roots. Had I not been so diligent in seeking family members who knew more than I about my Mama’s family, this weekend would pass me by just as the previous thirty Pow Wows did. But thanks to newfound cousins who were and are far more knowledgeable about Mama’s family than we ever hoped to be, we will be in attendance this year.

Unknown Stories

Mama knew precious little about her roots. She, of course, knew her parents though her father passed away when Mama was only seven. All she knew of grandparents on his side of the family was that her grandmother was Ellen and her grandfather was Andrew.

When my sister and I began the search for our roots back in the 1990s, we were armed with a great deal of information on our Daddy’s side. But Mama’s was almost a blank slate. It was only after I joined Ancestry that I connected with cousins who’d been working on this side of the family for over forty years. Their research and documentation were solid considering all the work had been done the old-fashioned way, by combing through records in dusty old courthouses and pouring through library microfiche. The hours this must have taken still astounds me.

Proofs

One cousin volunteered to take a DNA test for us. It was at this point that we connected to unknown kin. We were able to piece together a family tree. The records we discovered—census records, marriage certificates, death certificates, land deeds, wills, etc. were tangible proof of the discoveries we made.

So, this coming weekend, we'll travel to Virginia to stand on the land that has been a part of the history of the Nansemond for centuries. A part of my Mama’s family. My family. My sons’ family. My granddaughters’ family.

There are no words for the overwhelming emotions as I write this. I will share photos and more reactions with you next week.

Roots.

Join our conversation. Have you searched for your roots? Share your discoveries with us.

TWEETABLE

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The photo above is of my Mama's family. Back row: Alberta Bass Cunningham, Rubye Bass Register, Beulah Bass Elmore, Bura Bass, 

Seated: Grandpa Wilburn Bass holding Mama, Dot Bass DuPree, Check Bass, behind in middle; Granny Ludie Smith Bass holding Doris Bass Blackburn, Mary Bass Derby.

Family Stories-- Ask Those Questions NOW

By Debra DuPree Williams @DDuPreeWilliams

July is a busy month for birthdays in our family. No less than five family members were born on the fourteenth—my Daddy and his twin brother, my son, Christopher, and two cousins who are siblings. My great-nephew and his wife are about to have their third girl born in July. And the sixteenth is my granddaddy’s birthday. He would be 131, Daddy and Uncle Bill would have been 99. Such milestones.

Upon awaking this morning, I realized today is Granddaddy’s birthday. I wish that I knew more about him. We didn’t spend a lot of time with him when we were children. Granddaddy had a rough childhood. When he was only two years old, his father, at age 28, passed away, leaving my great-grandmother with two small children to care for. Aunt Nora was five years older than Granddaddy. I don’t know the real story, but for whatever reason, Granddaddy and Aunt Nora were sent to live with their uncle, brother of my great grandmother. We’ve been told that they were not exactly welcoming of Granddaddy and treated him cruelly, so at age 10, he ran away to an uncle on is father’s side where he lived until he was old enough to be out on his own.

Lost Stories

How I wish I knew these stories. The truth of them. The back stories. If those relatives were cruel to Granddaddy . . . why? Where did he go when he left his Uncle William’s home?Why could he read but not write? Where did he meet Grandmother? So many questions.

All I know is that when he married my grandmother, Roxie, she taught him to write. Was it because he could read and write that he became a surveyor and a carpenter? No clue. I didn’t spend enough time with him to ask those questions. And I was so young, only 13 when he died, learning about the elderly in my family was likely not a priority.

Sadly, I didn’t know my grandmother at all. She passed away when my Daddy was not quite 18. Daddy was very close to Grandmother. He was the sickly twin and spent most of his time with her when he was a boy. He started school well after his twin, so he had a few years at his mother’s side. She taught him to cook, clean, and to tend the garden. I can tell you that I know him well enough to say that he delighted in cooking and gardening, but cleaning would have been the last thing he would have desired. Nope, not that boy.

But I don’t have many stories about Grandmother. About all I know is that she was a few years older than Granddaddy, she may have walked with a limp from having stepped on hot coals when she was a child, and she died from what was then called lockjaw, today known as tetanus. She stepped on a rusty nail and passed away from lockjaw in 1938. The tetanus vaccination wasn’t readily available until the late 1940s. (As a side note, have you had your booster shot? You need one every ten years.)

Out of the blue this week, I was thinking of my in-laws. I wondered about the story of my husband’s parents’ elopement. I know that Mom was in nursing school in Birmingham, where Dad lived, and that she couldn’t continue with school if she was married. Word got out and she was forced to leave. But when and why and how did they decide to elope? How did they tell Dad’s family? Her family? Sooo many questions.

Ask Those Questions

My point in all of this is—ask any and all questions now. Don’t wait as one day, it will be too late. There are so many unanswered questions about the lives of my ancestors. How I wish that someone had written down these things. If only I had had the desire as a young woman to know these things.

Back in August of 2017, I wrote blog posts in which I included questionnaires which you could take to family reunions or gatherings. They aren't the final say on what you may want to ask, but they are a good start. As you head to family reunions this year, take along these questions. I think you will be glad that you did. Maybe not today, but one day, you will be very happy you did. Scroll through my posts to find the three from August of 2017 for those questions.

Have you asked all the questions you have? If not, please print out the list I have made for you. Let us know if this helped, and if you have a list, share yours with us.

TWEETABLE

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I Wish I"d Asked That - Family Questionnaire Part 3

@DDuPreeWilliamsby Debra DuPree Williams 

This week we finish with our questions for family members. This is a great tool for those who don’t want to take the time to write a memoir. Your family will thank you one day if they haven’t already done so. I know that there are many questions my sister and I wish we had asked of our parents and grandparents, and even of our aunts and uncles. So many family stories lost to time. I hope you have found this helpful and that you have added your own questions to the ones in my list.

I Wish I'd Asked That - Family Questionnaire Part II

by Debra DuPree Williams @DDuPreeWilliams

Last week I asked if you had begun a memoir and I gave you a list of questions to ask family members in case you aren’t into writing a memoir. 

I hope that you enjoyed reading through those and that you may have gotten to interview a relative or two. 

This week, we continue with part two of the questions regarding your adulthood.

I Wish I'd Asked That . . . Family Questionnaire Part I

by Debra DuPree Williams @ DDuPreeWilliams

DuPree Siblings with Spouses and Two Nieces 1980s

I’m of the generation that is likely next for Glory. My parents went home to be with the Lord in 1996 and 2012. While my sister and I did encourage them to tell us many of their life stories, there are still things we wish we had asked. Before it was too late.

The Past has Passed

There are things about our grandparents we wish we knew. We were too young to care when they were still alive. My Granddaddy DuPree, my last grandparent, died when I was only thirteen. I can tell you that at that age, I didn’t care about much besides getting to spend at least a couple of weeks with my cousins in the summer time. How I wish we had gathered around family members and asked all the things we would love to know now.

If you haven’t begun a memoir or if you don’t care about writing such, how about just answering some questions with a sentence or two? I think most people could and would do that. Perhaps you could get one of your children or even a grandchild to write down your answers.