BARRY’S BAY – Members of the Genealogy Group of Barry’s Bay are looking back into their roots in order to learn about where they came from, and hope to one day understand their family history.
This fast-growing interest is popular not only in Barry’s Bay, where ancestry is imbedded in the lives of those in the area, but is also common everywhere in the world, and is only getting more and more important as time goes on.
Theresa Prince joined the group when it generated nearly 11 years ago. At first, it was something to fill her time after her husband’s passing, but once she began to dig and find out about her past, it became much more.
“It’s like you’re hooked. You want to spend almost all of your time doing it. Everything else gets put aside,” Prince said.
She said she has learned a lot about her family heritage, and has even published several books on the subject.
Prince recently found a piece of information that links how her family came to the area.
A ship list, with the name of her great-grandfather, is one of the many stepping stones to finding out why her family decided on this area.
“I feel a sense of satisfaction,” Prince said, adding that the group has helped support her during the times when the digging got rough and she debated on giving up.
“When you hit a brick wall they will say ‘try this and try that,’” she exclaimed.
Prince has always been interested in her ancestry and loves to help others find out their story as well.
“You want to help people,” she said. “You want to find out all about who they are researching.”
The group began on February 26, 2002, when Prince, David Kelley and Esther Yantha, plus several others, discussed the idea of the group, and began asking the folks around town if they would be interested.
“We began sniffing around the community to see who would want to join,” Kelley said.
Story continues in the November 28, 2012 issue of The Valley Gazette.