Family Reunion

Today we attended the annual Selph Reunion in Cordele, Georgia where Joe was born. We started this tradition almost thirty years ago as a celebration of Joe's mother's birthday (Feb 13) along with several other family members with birthdays around this time. His mother's maiden name was Annie Mae Selph before she became a Hickox. Over the years, as various attendees of his mother's generation became more involved, it became the Selph reunion as many of her extended family joined us. Now there are none of her generation that remain, and the children of her generation are now entering their 70's and 80's, so time is marching on. It was interesting to note that most everyone there today was over 50. Most years we do have some younger folks with children, but for some reason this year that was not the case. If we don't recruit some young'uns soon, it is going to die on the vine. For many years Joe has insisted that his ancestors were castoffs from England's debtors prison that came to the new world when Oglethorpe landed in Georgia. Well, we got some good news today, Joe's ancestors originated in Virginia in 1661 - that's not very long after the pilgrims came to this part of the world. However, I guess they could still have come from a debtors prison. Billy Selph has spent a lot of time researching the Selph ancestry and we thank him for all his hard work in making a diagram of the various lines that are very extensive and prolific. Thanks to a distant cousin of mine, David Rayburn, I have some knowledge of my Dad's lineage. I need to start researching my Mother's line as I understand her ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War, so I and my girls can join the DAR if we want. Seems as one gets older these things become increasingly important doesn't it? The photo is one of Joe (on the left), his Mother and siblings in the early 1940's. Missing from the family photo is his sister (Marion), his half brother and sister (Johnny and Dorothy), and his Dad, who died when Joe was six months old.