Folding Time Melissa Willis Folding Time Melissa Willis

The Search for Delia Duval: Two

The search for Delia Duval, one of my great grandmothers, continues!

As I mentioned in my last post, I reached out to several kin directly as well as messaged a handful of people on Ancestry.com. Some of the Ancestry connections were DNA matches and a few simply had Delia in their tree and I was curious about their connection.

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Folding Time Melissa Willis Folding Time Melissa Willis

The Search for Delia Duval

Do your Ancestors ever call to you? Ask you to look for them by tugging at the edges of your heart, tickling your thoughts, or whispering in your dreams? One of my great grandmas, Delia Duval, unknown to me until just a few years ago, has piqued my interest recently, and so my very intentional search for her has begun.

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Folding Time Melissa Willis Folding Time Melissa Willis

The Restoration of My Favorite Family Photo

If I had to wager a guess, I’d say we all have that one favorite family photo that calls to us. That one photo that reaches into our hearts and asks us to look deeper. That one photo where everyone is looking at the camera (or no one is looking at the camera) and we just want to share it with everyone we know and love.

But maybe that photo has been damaged in one way or another. Maybe it got bent, or written on in the wrong way. Maybe something got spilt on it or maybe it’s been torn.

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Folding Time Melissa Willis Folding Time Melissa Willis

Hannah Ann

It seems fitting that, to properly begin sharing about my personal family history in this space, I must start with Hannah. From her I can work forwards and backwards in my maternal line as I share more individual stories, but in my mind, it all begins with her, the pebble tossed in the pond of my mind and heart as a small child, and from which the ripples expand.

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Folding Time Melissa Willis Folding Time Melissa Willis

Thoughts on Writing Your Family History

A family history written in a single sitting may be just as life changing to kin down the road as an unfinished book that took over a decade to compile. The biggest gift we can give ourselves and our relatives is to get out of own way while we try to contribute to our family’s story.

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Folding Time Melissa Willis Folding Time Melissa Willis

On the Threshold

On the threshold between all that’s come before and all that’s yet to come is this moment right here…

This moment, right h e r e.

A moment filled with endings and beginnings, wonder and excitement, nerves and inspiration.

A single moment acting as a bridge, a portal, if you will…

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