Originally published in BND’s Prime Life Magazine Nov 2017

It’s not often that Sue Lewis becomes stumped on the computer. As a technology teacher for 30 years at Immaculate Conception School in Columbia, she’s constantly answering questions about the newest apps and how to navigate the web. But last year while trying to do some personal online research, she found holes that no amount of technical knowledge could fill.

“After my husband, Jim, passed away in 2011, I realized how important it is for my kids and grandkids to have an understanding of their genealogy, especially on his side since he’s not here to talk about it,” said Sue. “Often these days, families don’t know where their lineage began.”

Sue subscribed to Ancestry.com, a website filled with databases of old newspaper articles, birth certificates, marriage certificates, obituaries, and historic census information. Over five years, she was able to compile enough information to track Jim’s family tree back to the late 1800’s — but that’s when she hit a virtual wall. Census data 100 years ago was handwritten, making names hard to read and dates unclear. She decided the only way to get accurate answers was to do some research the old-fashioned way, which meant talking to relatives who might know more than she did.

“Jim’s father was one of eight boys who grew up in the Blue Ridge mountains in North Carolina,” said Sue. “So I started a Facebook reunion page to see how many Lewis family members would be interested in meeting at the old homestead. I was happy to have close to 50 commit to coming.”

This past July, Sue’s son Joe from Waterloo and Jim’s sister Fran from East Carondelet accompanied her to the Appalachians, where they met relatives from Florida, Indiana, and North Carolina. They all had dinner together and chatted, and even panned for gold in a nearby stream. Then Sue got to work on her research by handing out forms for everyone to fill in their family information as best they could. She swapped old photos and asked “who’s who” questions, and found that talking to extended family can reveal a lot of information — much more than she ever expected to find.

“I found out that Jim’s grandpa was a postman who delivered mail on a hours — that’s something my grandsons think is pretty cool,” said Sue. “And that several of the uncles were musicians — one even played music featured in the original Mountain Dew commercial. There are also ‘black sheep’ in the family that no one talked about for years, like a cousin who murdered someone during a robbery. She and her boyfriend were said to be like a ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ of that time. And Jim never mentioned it, but his grandmother was thought to be a witch. There was a rumor in town that she had special powers and could remove people’s warts by rubbing her little black sack on them. It was all so interesting.”

While Sue enjoyed hearing the Lewis family stories, she was able to fill in most holes in her research by visiting the remote Lewis Cemetery up the road from the homestead, where ancestors from the past two centuries are buried. Some headstones were marked clearly with the names she hadn’t been able to read online, and she found a monument honoring Jim’s third great grandfather, Gideon, who was a Captain in the War of 1812. Finally, she had answers.

“I teach my students how much is possible with technology, but there’s nothing like getting up away from the screen and going out into the real world,” said Sue. “Talking to people and taking adventures are what makes life exciting.”

With the information from her road trip and online research, Sue plans to make books for her kids for Christmas. She believes that an understanding of their family history is the best gift she can give them.

“Jim probably shared stories and talked about his grandparents when our kids were younger,” said Sue, “but they weren’t ready to really listen. Now if they ever have questions about their ancestry as their children grow, they’ll be able to find answers. And Jim’s legacy will live on.”