Vacation Time is Family Time

We took a month vacation at home in Mississippi. I spent the entire month collecting data and pictures for my genealogy projects. We spent quality time with my parents and my husband's parents. Getting to visit and learning more about our family roots. We visited extended family members and borrowed and scanned pictures from past generations of our families and even visited members of the Jordan side of the family that I had never met. We visited the cemeteries of members of our families and got photos of headstones and paid our respects to our ancestors and family members that have passed on since our last visit home.






(My father-in-law and mother-in-law, several years ago, when they were visiting cemeteries, collecting information and photos on family members.
Here, they are at the headstone of my father-in-laws' great-grandfather of his mother's family.)





My father-in-law has Parkinson's and has lost most of his memory. It was a thrill to see him remember who the old photos were and tell some of the family history. The last two days of collecting and scanning the pictures, my heart was broken because he had lapsed back to barely no memory of anyone and total confusion.
He and my mother-in-law had spent years collecting information on their sides of the family, visiting cemeteries, courthouses, and family members to get the info that he had compiled.  Now all the information and pics are handed down to me as I take up the reins and began to add the info that he had, that I didn't have to our family tree.
We found out throughout this visit that all family skeletons come out of the closets, too.  Even if you are dead and gone, those secrets (family secrets) live on and eventually come to light. One member of my family said those facts weren't important to which I replied that facts are more important than protecting the reputation of someone that has long passed from this world. So, if you have secrets that you think are hidden they will come to light one day.
A month of collecting has given me over 1500 pictures and a couple of years of work for which I am thankful.  It has given me faces to people that were just names and relationships in our families. It has given me the drive I needed to pursue this to my finality and to pass it on to the one that takes up my reins.

I am so looking forward to the next vacation that can be family time...and the photos waiting for me on my next visit home.