Friday night was the Meet & Greet. I got to see family I hadn’t seen in many years. BUT, I met my 2nd cousin 2 times removed (see the bottom of blog for figuring that out). His grandfather, Preston Banks, and my 3rd Great Grandmother, Harriet Banks, were siblings.
I had previously researched his grandfather’s family. So, when my uncle introduced us and explained who he was, I did what most genealogists would do. I started rattling off who he’s the son, grandson, great grandson of..on both sides of his tree. I think he was pretty impressed by the fact that not only did I know about his Banks side, but I knew about his mother’s Williams side as well.
On Saturday, my fiancé and I went around town. I got some things marked off my list. I visited the FRSNNC which I am a member of and met the President, Sharon Gable. It was a pleasure meeting her b/c I have e-mailed her often for assistance with my family research. Then we went by the library to pick up a copy of an article that the genalogist made for me. It cost me a whole $.10 to get. Then we went exploring.
I wanted to see if I could find my great grandmothers house. I was going off of memory and we just started driving. After a couple of wrong turns, we found it.
The beautiful thing about this is, alot of my family stays on this one road. So all we had to do is park the car and visit with more family.
Saturday night was amazing. Going to our banquets is like going to church. My uncles, The Spence Brothers, are gospel singers in Elizabeth City and they sing at many of the churches there. Every reunion, they sing and it makes you want to get out of your seat. We also had another gospel group come and sing. I don’t have the name of them but they were outstanding. When I get their name, I’ll update the post. When I say that the guy singing “Never would have made it” sounded EXACTLY like Marvin Sapp…that is no exaggeration.
My presentation of the family tree and our history went over well. I think it sparked a lot of interest in the rest of the family by seeing how much work I’ve done over the past year. My only regret is that more of Enoch and Rosa descendents weren’t in attendance. However, I employed my daughter to collect everyone’s address, phone # and e-mail address and she did an amazing job!
Sunday was our farewell cookout. I spent most of the time visiting with family, collecting more addresses for my database and taking pictures.
This weekend I took over 150 pictures. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to take a group photo. There was so much to do and so little time. Hopefully next year, that will be accomplished.
But I can say that I can’t wait to go back on a research trip! Especially since I’ve learned the city!
A. Spence:
I’m so glad to read that your family reunion went so well!
In reading that you have family that all live on the same street, I was reminded of my own family on my mother’s side, where a lot of the relatives are either on the same road or nearby.
One of my fondest childhood memories is racing my cousins out on the street from their house to my grandfather’s house that was just three houses down. I won a lot of those races btw. : )
Next door to my Great Grandma is my uncle, next door to him is a cousin, next door to her is another uncle, next door to him is his son, so on and so forth. literally everyone on this road is related.
my next project is proving it with the ones I’m not sure of. I’ll call it the ‘Millpond Project’.