Branching Out

The internet never ceases to amaze. A google search and a few clicks later, my mother came across the following photo from 1942. Apparently it's the wedding of Maude Elaine Holder & Charles Errick Batson.



I have no clue who they are... but the photo is of particular interest because, if you count the leftmost guy as number one and work your way to the right, persons number five and six are my great grandmother Amy G. Lyall Wilson (b. 1898) and grandmother Mabel Rosalind Wilson (b. 1919), respectively. As for the kids, the leftmost boy sitting down is my uncle Edgar, and the kid second from the right is my uncle Earl. To say the least, my mother was blown away to come across this photo of her mom and grandmom.

I'm not sure if it was Grandma Rose's funeral, or that of Granddaddy Eddie... but I do remember meeting a somewhat distant relative some years ago who was totally obsessed with our family's genealogy. He was frantically running around the funeral trying to connect the dots, hoping to corner someone who could provide new leads for his endeavor. Well, some ten years later it looks like he has made some serious headway in piecing together my maternal family tree. Here's a link to the full internet tree.

Impressive. Needless to say, I'll have to bookmark that page and thumb through it when I find more time to do so. But in glancing through it, one little fun fact I've already noticed is that according to the tree, I've got 32 (THIRTY TWO!!) first cousins... 27 who I remember meeting, 4 that I don't think I've met, and one I'm not sure I've ever heard of. But I guess I've never stopped to count them all. And that's just from the maternal side (add 9 more from my dad's side of the family for a total of 41). Wow! Someone took that "be fruitful and multiply" verse pretty seriously. Looks like I've got some serious catching up to do.