NOTE: I accepted the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge headed by fellow genealogy blogger Amy Johnson Crow in January 2023. 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.

I have a series here on my blog, Wordless Wednesday. It’s a post that features a family photo, community photo, or a photo about my research with little to no words. It was something that I started when I didn’t know what to write about, but it quickly became one of my favorites to post each week. My Wordless Wednesday posts also are some of my most popular posts. At first, I thought choosing a favorite photo would hard. But it’s not. No matter how many photos I acquirethroughout the years, this photo will always be my favorite.

This photo is my favorite for many reasons. First of all, all the people in this photo have known me since birth. The people in the photo were my original support system. The people in this photo root for me, pick me up, dust me off, and send me back out into the world stronger than I was before. The people in this photo taught me what family, love, and strength are. I didn’t pick them, but I’m so blessed to have them.

In this photo are my dad, Wayman Mays; my mother, Patricia Hatchett Mays; me, my brother, Russell Mays; my sister, Paedra Mays, and my uncle, Leslie Mays in Little Rock, Arkansas 2015.