0f all the professions that I have had or wished I had, genealogy is the one that most fills my heart with gratitude. It’s as if the internet and the computer that accesses it was built just for us. Supplying information from the past and the present regardless of what happens externally around us. As if we could operate without being touched by the virus and the politics that have seeped in from every direction.
Let me share a couple of examples–
- Hall genealogy. I researched the Halls–all of them who resided in Albemarle County Virginia from the formation of the county to about 1850. I hired two expert genealogists during that time because I had small children at home and I could not take the time myself to go to Virginia to research the records not yet available on microfilm through the Genealogical Society of Utah (now the Family History Library). Later on, my husband Alma Dorus and I went to Virginia and walked the cemeteries, visited the churches, and followed up research in the State Library and various historical societies. Recently, I had a request for help in finding the parents and origins of these same Halls.
- Hall genealogy. I had the chance to work personally with a gentleman from Illinois whose Hall ancestry appeared to be connected to this same group of Halls in Virginia. We just could not make a firm connection. Then a few months ago, he wrote that he was certain that his Hall ancestor was connected to these Virginia Halls. And could I help make the connection.
So in the midst of the “year without Genealogy” I retrieved all of the Hall genealogy that had been researched–2 full file boxes of photos, copies, extracts, reports, letters, and family charts. One by one I examined this treasure-trove of data–already collected and not reviewed for a long time. What an exciting thing to do during a pandemic which shut down libraries and archives and shuttered access.
I am grateful for all the careful and thorough work done on this Hall family and numerous other families from Virginia, the Southern United States, New York and Pennsylvania, and other locations throughout this great country. My gratitude actually knows no bounds. That I have access to more than 35 years of my own genealogy, my professional genealogy work for more than 600 clients, my own personal historical library, and the Conner-Bishop Genealogy Library which is now in my possession.
At the Genealogy Library Center in Tremonton Utah, genealogy is alive and well. Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle. http://arleneeakle.com
PS Stay tuned to learn if my treasure-trove of Hall data includes parents and origins!