User:Floyd

At the moment I am constructing a "backbone" pedigree to add more details to later on. I am starting from my and my wife's grandparents and working back. Currently this is

• the Allan E. Reed (1890-1970) and Marie L. King (1905-1992) family of Henderson County, NC,
• the Floyd W. Jamerson (1902-1968) and Ella M. Case (1907-1991) family also of Henderson County, NC,
• the Emmett L. Whitaker (1905-2006) and Della L. Pitts (1909-2006) family of Texas and Arkansas, and
• the Hubert C. Blackstone (1905-1970) and Marjorie Kersey (1915-1998) family of Atlanta and Randolph Co., Georgia.

I like how genealogy makes personal connections to historical events, times, and places. For fun I will list some interesting relatives. At the moment this is (relationship is to my children):

• the Felice and Boudleaux Bryant songwriting team, most famous for "Rocky Top," B. Bryant is a 1st cousin 3x removed,
• Victor Smith Persons an engineer who worked in Egypt and lead an archaeological expedition in Mesopotamia, a 1st cousin 3x removed, and
• Charles Ezra Scribner, an electrical inventor, a 3rd cousin 4x removed.
• Henry Woodfin Grady the southern journalist and orator.
• Peletiah Webster, an early American economist that made contributions (this is with some controversy) to the federal constitution of the United States, 1st cousin, 8x removed.
• John Webster, colonial governor of Connecticut, a 10x great grandfather.
• Noah Webster the American English lexicographer, 4th cousin, 7x removed.
• Wild Bill Hickock the wild west figure, 7th cousin 2x removed.
• Glenn Close the actress is a 9th cousin.
• George H. W. Bush, former president of the United States, 9th cousin once removed.

I have put together quite a bit of genealogy information over the years (starting in the 1980's from information that my uncle had put together and from talking to my grandmothers). I have also thought quite a bit about a wiki framework for genealogy. (I even had a shot at writing some PERL code to do this on a website in the early wiki days and pitched the idea of a wiki-genealogy on wikipedia.) It makes so much sense to be able to connect to what others have already added and work collaboratively---instead of making copies of the same ancestors over and over in different files. When I read about this werelate.org site I had to try it out. I also want to get as much information posted and available to share with the rest of the family instead of just being buried on my hard-drive and stored in boxes. There is a trade off that comes from useful genealogy work. We have a natural human tendency to protect, hide away and get credit for what we have worked on for so long, but in the long run this is self defeating. If we don't widely share information either, someone else will eventually do it and get the credit, or even worse, information will be permanently lost.