As a child, I remember my mother spoke often of her grandfather, William Solomon Thomas. There seemed to be some mystery about his "real" name.  Rumor had it, he transposed his middle and last name to create who we knew as William Solomon Thomas. At the time, I wasn't able to appreciate the wonder of genealogy and it wasn't until a year or so later after my mother's passing (November 4, 2005), I began researching our family tree. Of course I chose to start with the Thomas side of the family as my grandmother (Evelyn) and the last living Thomas sibling was still alive.

 

Last year, I noticed someone was taking quite a bit of info from my family tree to his at Ancestry.com. I wasn't sure who this was but it sure peeked my curiosity. The last name was familiar to me for several reasons but there was only way to find out how he and I were related - email him. As it turned out he is my second cousin, Tom and his mother was one of my mother's closest relatives. In fact, Marilyn (Tom's mom) and her sister (Tonnye) were in a singing trio with my mom called the Buzzin' Cousins...but that's another story. Within a couple weeks Tom and I were able to chat on the phone about the mystery of great grandpa Thomas and decided to combine our efforts in solving it once and for all.

 

 

Sadly the last of the Thomas siblings, my grandmother (Nana), Evelyn Thomas Russie, passed away on April 20, 2010.  I had been gathering what little information I could over the past few years when chatting with Nana on the phone.   It was something we both enjoyed and we had just begun working on it here when she passed. With the help of Tom Colley, I was able to let Nana know that we had in fact proven that her father was born Jewish.  Days before her death, I was able to tell her about her father's siblings as well and she smiled.  I know she often wondered about him as well. 

 

It is to her memory I decided to create this site for our family to have one central online place that is easy for us all to use. Here we'll be able to share stories, facts, photos, as well as view our family tree -- and soon I'll even add a live chatroom so we can talk live!