Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - 100 word Genealogy Challenge

From Randy over at Genea-Musings: 

it's Saturday Night - 

time for more Genealogy Fun!!!

 Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  This SNGF is based on the 100 Word Challenge (https://100wc.net/) that school children are participating in around the world.  They are given a word or phrase to write a story about in one hundred words.

1)  Write a short 100 word story using the phrase ",,,the most interesting ancestor I have..." in 100 words.  [Hint:  If you write it in a word processor, you can use Tools > Word Count (or similar) to count words]

2)  Share the story with all of us by writing your own blog post, writing a comment on this blog post, or put it in a Google Plus Stream or Facebook Status or Note.  Please leave a comment on this post so others can find it.

Here's mine:

My uncle, John Russell Tapley, is my most interesting ancestor.  He was born 05 Jul 1917 in rural Johnson County, Georgia.  He was 18 when his father died, and while he loved his mother and was the “glue” that held the family together, he was also known to be quite mischievous.  He served in Europe in World War II and came home with PTSD.  He was a joker, had a fiery temper, and loved his family fiercely.  He never had children, but many nieces and nephews loved him like a father.  He died of a heart attack at age 50.

History in my Hand

Today, I visited the North Carolina Archives in Raleigh.

Wait... let me back up a bit.

I have been away from genealogy and this blog for a long time.  Years, in fact.  Then in the spring, I was in Georgia once a month to help my mom following her cataract surgeries.  So I had some down time.  I "met" a couple of new cousins online who sent me their family trees.  Mom and I drove to Dublin, Georgia, and met a couple of other cousins.  All of this lit the fire once again.  So for months now, I've been doing genealogy research.  Almost every night into the wee hours.  I've added over 1,000 ancestors/relatives to my Family Tree Maker database.  But yet I still haven't written a blog post.

Recently, I came to the realization that I have lived in North Carolina for 6 years and haven't done much research on my family from here.  So I started making plans.  To visit some places.  To find some documents relating to my Tapley ancestors.  Of course, I had been to the archives in 2012 and found some of these documents, but I needed to refresh my genealogy memory.

Now... back to the beginning of this post.

Today, I visited the North Carolina Archives in Raleigh.   I had an experience there that I want to share with everyone.  So here I am, back in the blogging world.

I found the Last Will and Testament of my 6th great grandfather, Hosea Tapley, from Caswell County, North Carolina.  It was supposedly written in October of 1780 and probated in June 1781.  Now I had a microfilm copy of this will.  I had even abstracted it here on my blog:  See Amanuensis Monday: Last Will and Testament of Hosea Tapley.  However, today what I found and saw and touched and photographed and copied was the ORIGINAL.  Yes, folded over in a folder, pulled from the back, where I assume there is a climate controlled room in which this 237 year old document resides.  I was overwhelmed.  In awe.  Almost teary.  To be able to see and touch a document that old, pertaining to my ancestor.  It was an amazing experience.

I don't know how anyone could not be affected deeply by that.

If we don't know where we come from, then how will we know where we're going?