By D.R.

Did you know that you may be living near a relative and not even realize it?  I found that out when our family started the James Hill Family Reunion.  My cousin Clina and I were talking one day and started discussing how we didn’t really know who a lot of our relatives were or much about our family’s history.  Initially unsure how and what to do to learn more, we finally decided to embark upon a fact-finding mission simply by talking to our parents. 

We wrote down all of the information our parents gave us, then, met and compared notes.  What we learned caught us off guard - my great Grandfather and her Grandmother were brother and sister.  Based on our ages, we had always automatically assumed we were the same generation.  What we had unearthed was that indeed we are James Hill descendants, but she is a 5thgeneration descendant, while I am 6th.  Just realizing how much more there was to learn, got us excited, and eager for more, so we planned an excursion to the National Archives located in Washington, D.C. 

Armed with the names of our grandparents, and their sisters and brothers, we took our first trip to the Archives.  We launched the initial search for matches within the marriage and census records area of the database.  Until that moment, I had no idea how important and relevant the census actually is.  We found names, birth dates, marriages, the number of children family members had and scores of other information we hadn’t even thought about.  Some of the data revealed facts like our family’s occupations and listed their race as mulatto.  What started out as curiosity had ended with a major achievement - the humbling knowledge that our family had ancestry that could be traced back in time to a rich, diverse, yet unknown history.

I’ll let you in on a secret - once you do even some basic research, you start matching the information and you are on your way.  To maximize your time, it’s important to prepare for your visit like Clina and I did, because our second trip was even more unbelievable but wonderful because the data we garnered connected us to and revealed more than 50 additional relatives – simply based on us knowing that James Hill was born in 1800 and Fannie Hill was born in 1804 and had 14 children.

This year our family is celebrating it’s 5thBi-annual descendants of James Hill Family Reunion and I can’t wait! 

To learn more about your own family, visit the National Archives’ website @ http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/

Take the step ~ LOVE self first …

D.R. host of “Lovn Life”

Every Friday 12 noon @ www.im4radiodc.com