Buried Treasure!

A few months ago my Aunt Babs and I were talking about our family history. She's always been interested in mapping out the family, and she's the one who mentioned years ago that part of our family lineage is documented in the "Hutchins - Hutchens: descendants of Strangeman Hutchins, born 1707, of the James River in Virginia and Surry (Yadkin) County, North Carolina."

I mentioned to my aunt that I'd planned to try to get my grandmother Blanche's birth certificate, among other records, to more fully document our family tree. She told me that she thought that record was among others that she gave to her daughter (my cousin) Susan. So I contacted Susan and asked if she'd mind if I took copies of the records since I'm knee-deep in our genealogy research. Susan graciously offered to give me all of the family paperwork; in return, I told her I would scan and post the significant finds.

So, as I mentioned in a previous blog posting, I went to visit my aunt and cousins in Minnesota early this month. I stayed with Susan (and Doug) at their house. During the day I visited my aunt at the nursing home and in the evenings we dug through the boxes/bags of papers. What a treasure! There were records for things I'd completely forgotten about (like my grandmother worked for the Department of the Navy during WWII) and pictures and artifacts from not only my grandparents but also my great great grandparents. Amazing!

So at the end of the sorting frenzy there were 3 very large piles of paper. Since I couldn't carry that back on the plane with me, I decided to mail it to myself and pray that it got home OK. I started writing this post early today and the box had still not been delivered...I was getting antsy. Thankfully, the mailman delivered the package just a couple of hours ago. I'm in heaven! While I would love to start sorting/organizing/scanning, I'm going to resist for this evening. Tomorrow I'll begin the process slowly and methodically. I just hope I can sleep tonight!