I became interested in finding my family after my mother's death. I remember all of the family stories she told us. In 1965 when I began my search I did not have a computer, it was all leg work. My sister Juanita and I traveled all over North Carolina and Virginia looking for the Hanes family. I expanded my search to all branches of my parents and husband's families. Williams, Beaver, Leazer,Sink,Brown, Bartley. Along with my sister Nancy we searched out older family members and found as much oral history as we could. Oral family history is hard to come by. It is all written down now and tucked away in my notebooks. It has been a long 58 years. It was worth every second of it. So many funny stories along the way from getting lost in the Virginia mountains to eating lunch while sitting on someone's grave stone. I try to leave a flower at every grave I visit. I feel the need to respect that person in hopes that someday someone will respect me.

I became interested in finding my family after my mother's death. I remember all of the family stories she told us. In 1965 when I began my search I did not have a computer, it was all leg work. My sister Juanita and I traveled all over North Carolina and Virginia looking for the Hanes family. I expanded my search to all branches of my parents and husband's families. Williams, Beaver, Leazer,Sink,Brown, Bartley. Along with my sister Nancy we searched out older family members and found as much oral history as we could. Oral family history is hard to come by. It is all written down now and tucked away in my notebooks. It has been a long 58 years. It was worth every second of it. So many funny stories along the way from getting lost in the Virginia mountains to eating lunch while sitting on someone's grave stone. I try to leave a flower at every grave I visit. I feel the need to respect that person in hopes that someday someone will respect me.