Without the assistance, help and great support from Aunt Mamie I would have never been able to connect the dots regarding most of the information that I’ve compiled over the years.

As a kid I remember seeing great Aunt Mamie at family reunions at the homestead in East Texas, but at the time I was really to young to know how who she was and how important she was to my grandfather “Hoot”.

When I began this quest for knowing my ancestry family member after family member would always tell me to ask Aunt Mamie, and that I did. MaDear was truly an amazing lady, with a sharp mind and wit. For example, when I first began tracing down my great great grandfather, I had one hell of a time. The only name anyone could give me was “Bible” a nickname and believe me there are no record for a “Bible” Tyson anywhere that I looked. One quick call to Aunt Mamie and the smoke cleared, the clouds went away, and the waters rolled.

“Oh honey” she said, “His name was Noah, not Bible, Bible was just a nickname”.

My very next visit to the library resulted in me locating not only him but hundreds of others, and that trail has not gone cold to this day. With that one bit of information I was able to trace our Tyson roots from East Texas all the way back to the early 1600’s on the little peninsula of Accomack County, Virginia, and family, it don’t get much better than that.

With all the help that Aunt Mamie provided I really never got to see her as an adult. The very year my wife and I had planned to go see her in Dallas, she passed away and a lot of family history left us that day as well. All that she knew and all she could have told me was forever lost.

I vowed that day that I would never let an opportunity like that happen again, and I’ve been on a mission ever since to compile a true family history that she’d be proud of.