52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Favorite Discovery

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52Ancestors

As a general rule, I’ve written blogposts about my favorite finds or those that make me smile or do a genealogy happy dance. This week’s blogpost is a compilation of some of those favorite discoveries.

Perhaps Learning Uncle George’s Story is my top favorite discovery with it’s compelling serendipity and because I learned more about his part in Operation Market Garden at Arnhem, Holland on September 18, 1944.

Or maybe my top favorite was when I learned my 2^nd great grandmother Lineberry’s first name.  It happened while I was at the Oklahoma Historical Society Library browsing the microfilm of the 1880 census for Sulphur Springs, Virginia. When I saw her name I said it out loud. “Rhoda, oh my, it’s Rhoda!”  I continued to say it as tears began gently running down my cheeks because I realized she was no longer forgotten to us.

Or maybe my top favorite find occurred because it was on a genealogy trip with my mother.  We got to share our excitement of finding in a vertical file at a small local historical society library, the marriage announcement for her great grandparents and my 2^nd great grandparents.  This was genealogy find that also created a memory with my mom that I cherish.

Other discoveries that elicit a genealogy happy dance in my soul and easily compete for a top favorite spot:

First image of a direct line ancestor:

• • The Surprising Finds that included an image of my 2^nd great grandparents George & Rhoda (Harmon) Lineberry hanging on the wall of a local convenience shop/museum.  This was also the same time that I learned about my great grandfather Jacob Lineberry’s letters to his brother.
  • The magic of meeting a distant cousin with similar velvet photo albums with duplicate photos handed down the generations.  Even sweeter is that while my DeVries Treasured Photos have no identification, my distant cousin has identification on some of the photos!

Signature of direct ancestors:

• • • My great grandparents John and Mary (DeVries) Brown: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Where There’s a Will
    • My 2^nd great grandfather T.J. Hindman: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Thomas Jefferson Hindman
    • My 3^rd great grandmother Amy (Turner) Keithley Burgess: Virginia and Amy
    • My 4^th great grandfather William Barton: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: William Barton
    • My 7^th great grandmother, Sarah “Salley” (Simpson) Bobo: The Will to Succeed (with Genealogy)
    • My 10^th great grandfather Anthony Morse: Re-Morse

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Amy Johnson Crow offers weekly prompts to get us thinking about an ancestor and to share something about that person. She calls it 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. 

Week 7 (Feb. 12-18): Favorite Discovery.  What is the neatest thing you’ve found in your genealogy research? What makes you smile just thinking about it?

Each of my posts using one of her prompts will have the tag of “52Ancestors” and I’ll share them on the thread she’s started for that week in her Generations Cafe Facebook Group.