Cousins Find Each Other at the Family History Fair

Family history fairs often have booths with information about resources (check), classes on involving children in family history (thanks, Kris Rencher), and an introduction to all that FamilySearch.org has to offer (check). But bubbles? Yes! Dr. Karen Hollie, founder and pastor of Lifeway Church, gave the keynote at the Dallas Family History Fair at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on September 18th and used bubbles as her object lesson.

As the audience was invited to blow bubbles from tiny vials, she explained how finding your family is like the bubbles that wafted through the air: They remind us of our childhood. No two are alike. And just when you think you’re done, more keep coming. Dr. Hollie, herself a regular patron of the Dallas Family History Center in Duncanville, discussed her discovery of not just her immediate family but also her relatives in the Chickasaw Nation. She said, “They are long gone but still part of my today.”

This fair was unique in other ways. Terry Turner is pastor of the Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church. His research has centered on his African American heritage. A “brick wall” exists in 1870 for African Americans whose ancestors were slaves, he explained. Most did not have surnames until invited to choose one between 1865-1870. The Freedman’s Bureau assisted in the transition and assimilation of former slaves. Narratives of their stories were written. Relatives were sought. Financial records were kept. Noting the importance of DNA in his efforts, Terry Turner worked diligently to get around that obstructing wall and offered attendees specific advice for their own research.

Two classes on Hispanic resources involved a long-time researcher and a brand new one. Virginia Ochoa Morrison has been working for 32 years on her lines in Mexico. Alex Esquivel (whose class was in Spanish) began his journey only recently but has had great success, tracing his father’s family 7 generations and his mother’s 14!

In the last minutes of the fair, in Sherry Grabill’s intro class, she and four attendees opened their FamilySearch apps and clicked on “relatives around me.” And surprise—all five were cousins! It was a perfect culmination of a successful event. We are all, every one of us, cousins at some stage in our history. First, second once-removed, 9^th or 11^th, we are all part of the human family. And just like those breath-filled bubbles, we all have much in common, as individual as we may seem.