Reunited

Pardon me if I borrow the title of a song from my high school years, but it seems to fit the topic of today's post. I just returned from my high school reunion. I was a bit disappointed in the turnout. Of course, I expected the turnout to be low. We really did not receive notification of the date until 3 months ago. Pricing and details only came to us in April. I suspect many of my friends had already planned other things for a holiday weekend. Others probably could not arrange to get off work on such notice when others in their places of employment had already requested days around the long weekend.

In spite of the low turnout, those of us who attended enjoyed visiting and reminiscing. I suspect most of us could have done without the DJ and the music that was mostly just interrupting our conversations. A few did dance, but there was little floor space available at our venue. I'd love to post a photo but I have not obtained permission to post one of the group shots some of my friends' spouses' took.

I'm really probably more excited about things that took place earlier in the day. I met with some cousins on my grandmother's paternal line at lunch. We then went out to where they were camping by the gravel pits around Bigbee to get a Y37 plus Family Finder sample. This will be in tomorrow's mail so the waiting begins. We already know where the autosomal DNA is pointing, but it will be interesting to see if we can identify a more specific line with the Y-DNA, perhaps through a mutation. We are showing matches to two branches with differing migration patterns. Persons from both of these areas migrated to the areas in Alabama and Mississippi where our ancestors resided. Hopefully we'll be able to bridge the gap.

After that, I went to my dad's first cousin's house where we attempted to identify all the people not previously identified in the 1984 reunion photograph. We managed to identify some of them. Most of those not identified were the younger children. We enjoyed visiting until it was time for her to go to her granddaughter's birthday party and for me to go to my reunion. We'd love to have another family reunion, but there are fewer and fewer first cousins, and the younger generations don't seem to care as much about getting together. Many of the older ones are unable to travel on their own.