52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Week 10 - Road Trips

I was born, raised, and still live in California, but my roots are elsewhere—from Texas and Louisiana to Kansas and Missouri, up to Minnesota, and all the way back to New England.

The only genealogy road trips I’ve taken have been in the Texas/Louisiana area. My sister lives in Texas and, when I go to visit, we usually plan a two or three day road trip to see some sights and do some genealogy. (She’s not a genealogist, but makes a wonderful courthouse research assistant.)

About 5 years ago, we took my granddaughter along and did a 4-state trip from her home in Texas, up to Oklahoma to visit family, a brief stop in Arkansas (it only counts as a state visited if you actually get out of the car!) and then on to northwestern Louisiana to visit the area in which our Spurlock ancestors settled.

We searched out and visited several cemeteries—Hurricane Cemetery in Claiborne Parish, Mt. Zion (Driskill) Cumberland Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Bienville Parish, and Antioch Cumberland Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Jackson Parish—and paid our respects to the ancestors buried there. I discovered that my sister has a wonderful ability to find tombstones.

We travelled the length of Spurlock Road in Claiborne Parish; I think this road was an original boundary of Ransom Spurlock’s homestead but haven’t mapped it out. We also visited the Bonnie and Clyde Museum and ate at a wonderful restaurant called Ernie’s in Shreveport.

Digital image. Denise Spurlock, 2007.

From a research standpoint, this wasn’t the most productive genealogical road trip, but in terms of making family history, it tops my list! It was a wonderful opportunity to share my passion with both my sister and my granddaughter.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your thoughts on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.


© 2012 Denise Spurlock, Ancestral Trees Research