Posts Tagged ‘Writing’

Don’t Forget Dad!

Posted: August 17, 2026 in Family
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Hello everyone, this is my dad, Billy Edward Cornett, born March 15, 1944. He passed away in April 2001 and lived to be 57 years of age. From what I can recall, he lived with his mother, Lucia Rose Cornett in the family home that I remember from when I was maybe 6 years old, in Whitehall, Maryland. He lived in this house for about 28 years (since April 1998).

Just last week, I submitted a request for a copy of his birth certificate online through the Virginia Vital Records office. Easy process and it only costed me $15, cheaper than I thought it would be, to be honest. I am waiting to receive this document via snail mail. I’m kind of excited to see what kind of information I can glean from his birth certificate! Then just this morning, I found that I misplaced his death certificate, somehow. I had placed the copy of it in an Evernote app, in a note I created several years ago. So once I decided to no longer use the app, I emailed it to myself and must have accidentally deleted it. (YIKES!) So I had to try and remember the funeral name from the death certificate so I could request a new working copy, not certified but just a copy, at least for now.

I contacted the funeral home via their website, and I must say within less than 5 minutes I was contacted by phone, they searched and sent a copy to my personal email address. How’s that for customer service?? In a past post, I believe the title was “Who’s My Daddy”, I mentioned that my father was a brick wall of sorts. Since I am a child of parents who divorced when my sister and I were very young, we do not have very much information on him. Maybe a handful of memories, a couple of photographs, I want to know so much more!

I plan on trying to have a conversation with my mother this afternoon, after work to see if her memory will cooperate with us both. She has early signs of dementia starting, so there are a few questions I would like to ask to see if I can maybe learn where he went to school, when they met, what he did for work while they were dating…you know the early years kind of stuff! Based on his death certificate, I know he only had an 8th grade education and his occupation was listed as a carpenter, but that’s really all I know the details of, sadly. Why did he not graduate high school like my mother had? Did he have to quit school to help support the family? Did he just not like school? SO many questions that I hope to enlighten you all with, in a future post!

The reason I wrote this post, is sometimes dads get overlooked and they can be an important building block to your future research as you travel through the many avenues or traveling down the long, winding dirt roads of our ancestral roots.

HAPPY HUNTING! May your adventures lead you to thrilling discoveries and unforgettable experiences, whether you’re exploring the great outdoors, searching for hidden treasures, or simply embracing the joy of pursuit. Remember to take in the beauty around you and cherish each moment as you embark on this exciting journey filled with new opportunities and challenges along the way!

A Story To Be Told, A Memory To Behold

Posted: June 12, 2012 in Uncategorized
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When I started writing this blog a year ago, my concentration was primarily focused on the history aspect of my family’s ancestral roots. I don’t know what I expected to find, being a novice and just starting to learn genealogy and all that it entails. I also didn’t know that it would become an addiction of sorts! My first impression of genealogy was the history part of it for sure, but also gaining a learning experience. 


Writing has always been a passion of mine since I was probably 17 years old. Not many people know this except my mother, but I actually wrote a romance novel! Ha! Who would have thought that a 17 year old girl would know enough about romance to write a book about it? I even typed the manuscript out on a typewriter, some people don’t even know what a typewriter is now that we have all this technology with computers, laptops,the iPad, and our smart phones. As a teenager I never even had Internet! So now everyone who reads this knows my dark secret! I wrote a book, submitted the manuscript to a publisher in New York and it was accepted, but little did I know about the publishing world. They told me I had to pay for the books to be published. Go figure! That never happened to Kathleen Turner in “Romancing the Stone”. So in my mind, I thought that it really wasn’t good enough to be printed. I requested my manuscript back and tore it to shreds and never wrote another word. Until last year when I started this blog, researching my family history.


So here I am today, still searching in the past. What about the future? What legacy will I be able to give my children and their children and so on? I think every family has a story, a past which no one person knows about unless it’s been written in a history book. Some stories get passed on from generation to generation but somewhere along those lines the original story was lost in translation. This reminds me of a time when I was in elementary school. The teacher would whisper a sentence in the first students ear, in turn that student told the next student what the teacher said and by the time the sentence reached the last student in the class, it wasn’t anything close to what she had told the first student originally! So you see, how just one sentence can change in just a short period of time between a handful of students. I can imagine what the different variations would be if a story were to be told and passed on from one generation to the next. There is always a story to be told and a memory to behold.


Photography is both a hobby and a passion for me. I take photos of just about everything; I guess it’s almost like a photo journal where I want to create the snapshot that will tell my story. One day I will create my own photo book of my life to pass on to my children. Memories are wonderful things and as the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words”, I believe it really does ring true. Photos are just memories in time. Times of happiness and memories to be made for future generations to enjoy. 


What keepsake will you create? Share your ideas in the comments below. 




Image Source:
Family Quote ~Tea Cups Of Life