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| Scan of a photo of Edward Olsen and his great-grandmother Cecelia Strahle Hillenbrand. From the collection of ©️Virginia Summers Olsen, originally from the collection of Emma Dorothy Hillenbrand Olsen. |
This post is part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. The prompt for Week 4 is "A Theory in Progress." What started as a simple attempt to bridge a gap in my wife's family tree quickly took on a life of its own. As I began to dig, the "theory" didn't just find proof—it found color. This has grown into a five-part series I'm calling Halifax Hues, where we move from a faded sketch to a vibrant, multi-generational portrait of this particular branch of the Epps family.
Every family has that one document—a hand-scribbled note, a faded letter, or a carefully typed list of names—that serves as the unofficial map of their history. For me, that map was a multi-page document titled "Ancestry of Charles Arthur Epps." It came to me from my wife’s grandmother, whom we called Grancie (Sarah Rogers Davidson). While the document was likely compiled by one of Charles’ children—one of Grancie's cousins—it functioned as the original, uncolored outline of our family tree.
