Its Tuesday afternoon, and Bonnie Stallman is answering the phone in the lower level of the Holmes County Cultural Center Complex (CCC), now home to the Holmes County Genealogical Society (HCGS), which was housed in the former Nashville Public Library up until July 2012.
Stallman, who lives in Holmesville, cofounded the genealogical society in 1983, along with neighbor Wilma McCurdy, after researching her own family heritage following the birth of her children. Shed spent so much time gleaning from other groups, she decided it was time for Holmes County to open one of its own to help others in the thrilling and sometimes frustrating quest to uncover their ancestry.
Back then, Stallman says, it was pre-computer, pre-Internet. You requested information by mail or visited the places your ancestors came from. That was fascinating, because you would go to courthouses, look at records, and see the actual handwriting of your grandmother or grandfather.
Now, Stallman says, information is typed out, stored on microfiche, or scanned into computers. In fact, the HCGSs research room is filled with original documents the courthouse had scanned and planned to destroy before the HCGS rescued them.
As Stallman shares about her own family research, two women poke their heads into the HCGSs office. They are first cousins Carol Smucker Zeiss and Marilyn Hart Gerber from the Toledo area, here doing research on the Hart/Finney families, trying to locate information about the parents of Isaac B. Finney. The women are descended, they know, from Hannah Butler, the first documented Caucasian child born in Holmes County, but when it comes to Isaac B., theyre getting nowhere.
Stallman pulls a book from a shelf, filled with names from the tombstones in Holmes County. The women flip through the pages. Isaac B. Finney isnt there, so their search will continue.
Finding the right relative can be tricky. In this case, there are billions of Finneys, Stallman says, and its often hard to pinpoint the right one. Sometimes birth dates are wrong, records have been lost or legal names arent used. Even in her own research, Stallman spent ages looking for great-grandfather Henry Bailey before she discovered his name was actually William.
Sometimes, though, families walk in the door with very little information and leave with a whole lot. Just last week, Stallman says, a couple from Cincinnati stopped in on a whim, not really expecting much.
But I went through the shelves and found a few things I thought would help, and they went home with a wealth of information, Stallman says. They were pleased.
Currently, the HCGS is maintained by about eight active members, though there are 170 nationwide. Only a handful maintain and tend to the records and assist patrons. Stallmans hoping that will change, that others will join in helping to preserve Holmes Countys genealogical history. Having moved to their new location next to the Victorian House Museum, nearer downtown and the Central librarys genealogy room, the HCGSs traffic has already increased. More hands are needed to man the center, go through and file documents, and become familiarized with the resources. The work isnt hard, Stallman says, the hours arent long, and its fun helping people solve their genealogical mysteries. After all, she says, knowing who your ancestors were helps you understand who you are.
Youre the sum of the people who lived before you--what they learned, what they lived through, how strong they were--all of those things are a part of you.
To find out more about the Holmes County Genealogical Society, call 330-674-0022.
