Genealogy comes alive: How many of your ancestors have you met?

Genealogy is the study of our family back through time. But how many of your ancestors did you meet or actually know?

The recent passing of my mother, Louise Brooks Thomas, leaves me with no living ancestors. At birth, I had three grandparents, one great-grandmother, one great-grandfather and a step great-grandmother living. My great-grandfather died within three weeks of my birth, so I never met him. I got to know my great-grandmother although I don’t recall any one-on-one chat with her. My earliest genealogy activities were going with my mother to gather information for her to join a lineage society. We went to several cemeteries copying tombstones. This information, when added to the already approved application of a cousin, allowed my mother to become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1961.

My own genealogy work didn’t start then, but my earliest notes are from early 1962, and the sign-in ledger book at the Georgia Archives shows that my first visit there was in July 1963. My mother’s ancestry leads back to my earliest Georgia ancestor, Hall Hudson Sr., who arrived in 1766. On another branch, I am using our ancestor James Knott to prove my links to the Jamestown Colony, as he died there in 1653.