NOTE: I accepted the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge headed by fellow genealogy blogger Amy Johnson Crow in January 2019. The idea behind this challenge is that you will receive email prompts, a word or phrase, every week, and you find something about your research or family history to write about. I write in a journal about all the prompts, but I blog about at least one prompt a month. Click HERE to read about how I have incorporated this challenge in my blogging.

This week’s 52 Ancestors prompt is ‘Nurture’.  My guess is because this is the week of Mother’s Day.  Mother’s Day is the day we celebrate the mothers in our lives.  I always celebrate any woman who has nurtured a person in some way.  We all know it takes a village to raise a child.  This Mother’s Day I had the pleasure of being reminded of that.  This year my nephew, Eric’s, college graduation was on the Saturday before Mother’s Day.  That meant three generations of the Mays family would be together for two days, which doesn’t happen very often these days.  So for the first time in a long time my mother had the pleasure of spending Mother’s Day with all of her children.  My brother’s wife, Ericka, was able to spend the day with her three sons and her mothers as well.  Not to mention all of the Mays boys, my three nephews and my son, were all together.

We had a fun filled weekend of eating, laughing, and just being together.  I was able to get out my genealogy scrapbook and other family history books and show them some of my research.  It’s always easier to get them interested in my research with photos.  We reminisced over stories of when the boys were young, when my brother and sister were young, stories of our hometown, and other family stories.  It was a wonderful family weekend.  In fact I had so much fun that I didn’t take the time to take one picture of us.

This was truly the best Mother’s Day I have had.  I got the opportunity to talk about my research with my family.  I was able to spend some much needed quality time with them as well.  I was able to do all the things I love with all the people I love, so what could be a better present than that.  I’ve said it once, and I will say it again genealogy is about more than just names and dates.  It is also about sharing our old memories with the next generation while making new memories.  And believe me when I say all of us will have many memories from Mother’s Day 2019 to share throughout the years.  And this is how my journey continues…