Monday, March 7, 2011

A Simple search turns into a lifetime book of family history

By Miyoshi Polk

   Paoli Polk never imagined that her simple task of creating a family reunion book would turn into a three-year journey delving into the lives of slaves and other ancestors.
   So how did all of this come about? Paoli joined a committee solely to organize one of the biggest family reunions for the Polk and Morgan family in years. A great success meant finding the right food, location, and games. But they also wanted their family members to walk away with a token of appreciation and some history to enlighten them in some depth about why they all were gather there that day.
  Their solution for a lasting history reminder? A book with facts and photos about the family history. They asked everyone to send family names and a picture of their immediate family so that everyone could identify who was who. And then Paoli went out interviewing, calling, and even meeting people she never met before to get more facts and history about her family. She lives in Charlotte, NC and went searching around that area and beyond.
   “I had the chance to meet cousins on my father’s side of the family while attending a funeral of a great uncle and aunt. They gave me many names and facts that helped me connect some dots to my puzzle,” she said.
   She even went as far as signing up for ancestry.com to get Census records as well. The family book was a success. Everyone loved the fact that they had all this history in one simple book.
   “I was surprised how everyone was so interested in the book. It kind of took me for a minute, but then I saw --why wouldn’t they be? It’s family history,” she said.
   After that success Paoli still wanted to know more about her family and their history. So she started her own, more detailed family book. She started small by just using her immediate family.
  “I was so full of excitement of my new-found project that I rushed to Hobby Lobby, a local arts and craft store, to get supplies for my new book, spending hours at a time in the store looking for different things to make my book,” she explained.
   When she finished with her immediate family, she took on all four sides of her family--her mother’s mother and father, and her father’s mother and father. She knew that this would be a long process but she was so intrigued with it that she didn’t care.
   As the research went on, the search seemed to become bigger than life itself. Paoli didn’t care; she was enjoying every minute of it. She started using other research tools and visiting cemeteries, museums, and a geology library.
   One of her unsettling discoveries came from her visit to Reeds Gold Mine, a historical museum in Albemarle, NC. There she found she had many ancestors who were slaves. Because they took on their master’s last name it made it hard to find information because sometimes there was no trace of the original name. She even saw houses that long-lost family members slept in and cleaned in. She walked through fields of cotton where her ancestors picked cotton all day.
   “Reeds Gold Mine kind of sent chills through my body a little knowing that I had family members living this type of life style,” she said she was thinking to herself while walking through the field.
   She’s become so full of information now that sometimes the tables are turned and she’s become a source herself. Recently Paoli visited a geology library in Monroe NC. , one that also contains information about people who lived in that city. She was helpful to the library by giving them a picture of some of her relatives for their documents to show others when they come to visit.
   “I have enjoyed doing this new-found hobby, but when I do the research some things are too painful to look at and even read knowing that these things really happened-- and even at that to my own family,” she said, adding “but what I can say that I’ve taken from all of this information, whether it’s bad or good, is strength! Strength--to give to my brothers, sister, and daughter so that they can pass it on and grow from the experiences that our ancestors went through for us.”

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