Genealogy angels exist – they really do! Last night, I was visited by one.
One of the family branches that I work quite actively on is my maternal grandmother’s family – the McNair family of Washington and Edgecombe counties in North Carolina. This branch is an active one – with reunions held every year since 1970 – this year would have been our 50th reunion had it not been for the pandemic.
Well, I was absolutely DELIGHTED last night to receive an email from another genealogy enthusiast who found this blog, was doing some research, and sent me something that I was not sure existed – a newspaper article about the very first reunion! The article was published in the Perquimans Weekly newspaper of Hertford, NC, and is digitized and available on the DigitalNC.org website.
Back in 2015, I requested help from the Washington County Library to search for an article in the local paper there, but one was not located. Well, this article my genealogy angel sent, was published in a nearby county as one of the McNair descendants lived there. Whoo wee!
What I realized is that our family’s first gathering, in 1970, was not called a “reunion”; that was formalized in 1971. I had been looking in 1970, so now I will go check the Washington County papers in 1971 and see if I can find an article there.
I am just too happy about this! I’ve already saved the clipping to my digital library collection where I keep all of my photos & genealogy documents, and can now start sharing it with family and reusing it as I need. This is fantastic!
To my genealogy angel wherever you are – thank you! You have not only made me happy, but my family will certainly be overjoyed to read this.