A milestone and the book that got me there

 Since I arrived in Augusta, I have had more time to do genealogy research.  I have several projects going at once and a list of many more I want to do.  One of the projects I have finally started is entering Drake relatives from this book into my family tree:

Descendants of Exum Drake

Volume III

Descendants of

Francis Bryant Drake

and

Selina King

by

Robert Eldon Drake, M.D.

1977

As you can see, the book is ancient now.  I have owned this copy for probably 25-30 years or more myself.  Yet I have never gone through it and added the research to my own tree.  So I started a couple of weeks ago and with mixing it up with another  project I have going, I haven't gotten bored.  I have probably entered 300+ names at this point and am only on page 216 of 646 pages.  

Now I know some people don't put distant cousins on their tree, but I do.  I have 8th cousins in my Family Tree Maker software.  This book, being from 1977, only goes up to my 4th cousins, 1x removed, so it is really valuable information and worth it to me.

Dr. Drake (who is my 3rd cousin, 1x removed) has passed on now.  I got this copy by contacting his wife and probably received one of the last printed copies.  I now wish I had gotten other volumes.  I will have to try to find them in a library one day.  

Anyway, I was busy adding descendants into my software, and I hit a milestone.  I added the 33,000th person into my tree!  That's a lot of relatives!  I know some genealogists (Randy Seaver comes to mind.) who have 3 times or more of that number in their trees.  Mine is a work in progress.  

The lucky #33,000 was Nina Maxine Scott (1923-2008).  She was the wife of my 4th cousin, Allen Dwight Thigpen (1922-1976).  

Allen Dwight Thigpen

1942

Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of Nina, but I will share what I learned about her today.

Nina Maxine Scott was born  March 5, 1923 in Colleton County, South Carolina.  Her parents were William Harrison Scott and Jennie May Wilson Scott.  At some point, the family moved south, and Nina graduated from Chapman High School in Apalachicola, Franklin County, Florida.  I would guess that is where she met her future husband, Allen, since he lived in Apalachicola and graduated from the same high school.  Nina would have graduated about 1941, and she attended the Jones Business College in Jacksonville, Florida.  Allen would have graduated about a year before Nina, attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, and joined the military in 1942.  

Meanwhile, Nina's family headed west to Louisiana and Missouri.  I am not clear if she joined them or just went there to have her wedding, but on May 6, 1944, Nina and Allen got married in Neosho, Missouri.  They were married in the home of the pastor of the local First Methodist Church.  The ceremony took place on a Saturday afternoon.  The bride wore "navy blue crepe and her accessories were of white.  She wore a corsage of white orchids."  This sounds like a war time, quickly executed wedding, perhaps because the groom must ship out soon.  Allen was stationed at Camp Crowder, Missouri at the time, where he was attending radio school.  The bride and groomed settled at home at 116 Jasper Street in Joplin, Missouri after the wedding.  

Their first child, Laura, was born June 11, 1947.  Then were was a gap of time where I could not locate where they lived or if Allen was still in the military.  In 1957, they arrived in Crestview, Florida.  It was there that their second child, Scott, was born on May 1, 1958.  Scott's birth announcement does mention that the couple was "formerly of Chattahoochee" (Florida) so evidently they lived there before arriving in Crestview.  On December 15, 1959, Allen and Nina welcomed twin boys, Michael and Mark.  This completed their family.  

Both Nina and Allen operated an insurance agency (ies).  Nina's obituary states she owned the Thigpen Insurance Agency, whereas Allen's obituary said he owned Steele Insurance Agency.  Surely they didn't compete with each other.  

Allen died in Crestview in 1976.  Nina lived there until 1983.  I know she lived in Sandy Springs, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, in an assisted living facility at the end of her life.  Her son, Scott, lived in Atlanta, so she must have moved there to be near him.  

Nina passed away November 7, 2008 and was laid to rest next to Allen at Live Oak Memorial Park in Crestview.  

Here is our relationship chart that shows exactly how and through whom we are related:

It never fails to excite me to learn about a "new" relative!