Courtesy of Wedding Window

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Family Heritage


I've thought a lot lately about heritage... about where I came from. 

Now, obviously, I believe that we are all descendants of Adam and Eve. And then, I know that the earth was destroyed in Noah's time, and that our ancestors are the ones that were on the ark. But what about after that?

How in the world did I get here, from there?

Recently, I got interested in ancestry, and ancestry.com is my new best friend.

I know, I know. It is almost impossible to completely validate everything I find on there. After you go back so many years, the only things to rely on are historical records like immigration and census records. 

But man, it sure does give me a thrill to "hit" on something, and discover yet one more link to the past. So far, in one far-reaching branch of my family tree, I found records as far back as 600 A.D. 

600 A.D.!! People, that is pretty dang close to Jesus' time! 

JESUS! 

Now that is exciting. Ideally, I would LOVE to be able to trace my roots back to Noah. Is that realistic? No. There are so many records that just weren't kept back then. It will never happen. But, the thrill of the chase keeps me searching... you just never know what you might find.

My great-grandmother always insisted that she was descended from royalty. Always. Now, you can imagine that we all wondered where her riches were if that was true...

Guess what?! She was right. I found, way back like 8 or 9 generations, that her family WAS royalty. Her many greats grandfather was a Duke. And I discovered where he abdicated his right to the throne and married an Indian princess! From then on... no more of our family was considered "royalty", and sadly, the big money must have stopped there. 

Oh, what we would do for love! 

(Don't get me wrong, I would have done the same thing for love!)

Anyway... this past weekend we went off on a little jaunt and "re-visited" some of the past. Here are some pictures of some places that still mean a lot to me to this day:


My Papaw and Nanaw's house in Henryetta


Another view of the same house 


The house I was born in (and Kim and Greg spent a lot of their childhood in) at Henryetta


My Grandpa & Grandma Morris' house in Pleasant Valley 


The red barn (shop building) on their property 


And of course, the "House that Built Me"


And here are some pictures of the final resting place of some loved ones... gone, but never forgotten...



My Great-Grandfather (Papa), Jessie Edmonds

My older brother, Chris 


My Grandfather (Papaw), Herb Wittman 


My Grandmother, Irene Wittman 


My Dad, James Morris 


My Grandpa & Grandma Morris, James Rodney Morris and Mary Albina Durkeweicz Morris 


My Grandpa, James Rodney Morris 


My Dad, James Howard Morris 



And there are many other beautiful souls that have gone on, that I would love to eventually have pictures of their headstones. 

I don't want to ever forget just where I came from... or where I'm going. And I'm just going to point out now, that I really am royalty. I'm a child of the King. 

And no one can ever take that away from me... even if you can't find it on ancestry.com!

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