I was looking up photography links last night when I came across “Whiddon Photography”. Since my last name is not common in it’s spelling I began to wonder if they maybe family related on my fathers side. I began to search the Internet but was not able to find out if we were related or no but what I did find was amazing.
Most families are closer to one side of there family than the other. For me I have always been close to my mother’s side of the family because we all lived close together, kept in touch, and knew our family background well. But on my father’s side I didn’t know many of my family members. My knowledge of the family only went as deep as my grandfather [which I did not meet until I was around 10 years old] and my grandmother whom I was close to up until here death in 1981. Other than that I knew less than a handful of family members on my father’s side and would go years without speaking or seeing them. We are not in touch today, other than my aunt, who is my father’s twin, the two only living children of my grand parents.
To make a long story short while searching the Internet I found my grandfathers name. It took me to a website [free] and to my surprise it listed his date of birth, date of death, the date he and my grandmother got married, where the both of the are buried, and gives all census records as reference. It also lists their children, which includes my father. It then lists my g-grandfather and has the same information and references. It goes all the way back to when my fathers family came to America. My ggggggggg-grandfather, he was born in 1619 in England. It did not say what year he came to America but it did say he died after 1678. The information is so detailed I am still at awe. It took 6 pages just to print a straight line from my father back to my ggggggggg-grandfather and both are named John. According to this I am the 11th generation of the Whiddon family. It will take me hours if not days to go through all the family lines.
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