How We Got Into Genealogy

One day back around 2004, I was visiting my mother and started looking at some of the old photo albums she had. I started thinking about doing something with our family history. I had heard about Ancestry.com so I went ahead and joined (it was expensive then, too). I started to trace my mom's family back to Lithuania and the old man's family from Arkansas to Vermont. It wasn't that hard to do.

Then at a Sunday dinner at Donna's mothers house, we started talking about it and Donna's Aunt Norma had already been putting together the Hyman family history. She gave me a copy of Family Tree Maker and a gedcom file with their family history on it. Once I installed FTM and imported that gedcom file and started looking at the family history, I guess I got hooked.

At that time I had my own online server with just a jpjones.org domain, but it got me thinking again. I was searching the net and found TNG (The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding) and joined the forum. I said what the heck and purchased my first copy of TNG v.5.1.0 and installed it on my home live server at the time. I thought, man, this is the best thing since sliced bread! Now we have Simply Hosting and a couple of domain names and we're up to TNG v.14.0.2 and we have 44,891 people and 21,917 families in our database and still adding them! Since Donna and I are both retired now, well it's pretty much all I do for like 6-8 hours a day and Donna finds out more history and I just keep resarching and updating the database.

Our Personal Story

This is how it all began...

Let us begin our story the night of June 29, 1996, two people come together to start a new journey. At the high school reunion as the boy arrives through the front door, the girl comes from the back of the room looking across their eyes meet, and smiles appear on their faces. That was it. That night was special.

I’m getting a little ahead of our story, John and I grew up in the same neighborhood from second grade to graduation to then some. We are friends who had different paths but always close. I know I was so happy to have him in my life. I hope he feels the same.

Through our time together we have had so many ups and downs as everyone experiences. I have to say we are lucky to have more ups than downs. I know John will agree that we love our journey together and look forward to what the future holds for us. We have found a secret, that is laughter is always one of the strongest bonds and We Laugh a lot.

Our Sacred Vows

In the sands of time, Sunday at five pm, September 26, 1999, at the Alhambra Hall at 131 Middle Street, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. To be, and was, a wedding with a view of and from a most historical location. In the distances lay Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor and South Battery, the cradle of legends, through time.

With the season of autumn fast coming on, beneath an overcast sky, with an ever so gentle breeze, under the 'ol mossy laden oak tree standing next to the grassy marsh, in the presence of many peers, Donna Marie Hyman & John Paul Jones exchanged their most sacred of vows, for now, and for all times, two will become as one.

With the passing of the vows, the couple began the slow climb to the second floor with a view beyond. There the atmosphere was one of, and now, let the celebration begin, and begin it did. As the band played on, the mood was enhanced by fine food and spirits a plenty, in the best of company.

But, like all celebrations, there must be an ending, for life must go on, or begin. With sundown fast coming on, the couple journeyed out into life, leaving that 'ol mossy laden oak tree far behind, from where it all began, life.

Donna is the daughter of James Wayne Hyman & Agnes Marie Woodson of South Carolina. John is the son of Forrest Leslie Jones Sr. and Helen Mary Zikorus, formerly of Massachusetts, now South Carolina.

by Phillip M. Hyman of Cross, South Carolina

Our Song

Thunder Road