by Glenn Wallace, Rotarian, Germantown, MD
Spring cleaning isn't an enviable task. But while searching deep under the basement stairs, I discovered a real legacy.My mother-in-law and her brother, Patience and Frederick Day, spent decades researching their family genealogy. Their efforts focused mostly on their paternal ancestor, a 19th Century gentleman from Boston, Mr. Moses Day. Every bit of collected information was hand written on scraps of paper and neatly organized into various binders. It appeared repetitive and disheveled, but their process was slow, methodical and orderly.
When they passed away within four years of each other, their research was neatly packed up in storage boxes and somehow ended up under my basement stairs.
When the boxes once again saw the light of day, they were on the verge of going to the county dump. I can’t say for sure why I decided to cut through the packing tape, but when the cover was opened, my outlook on life took a new direction.
Inside, among all the scattered papers, the few photographs, the deeds, and census records was a puzzle that I just had to solve. For the next two years, I was able to extract every ounce of information and input it into a proper genealogy database. The family tree started to grow, and grow, and GROW. All of the questions written on the sides of the notebook pages now had answers. The Day family tree was enormous… and about to expand. 
Once the direct family lineage was established back to Moses Day and his ancestral line, I began looking for his descendants through each of his children. As of today, I have discovered 387 relatives that Patience and Frederick never knew. In their honor, I’ve made contact with every living member of the Day family tree and shared the legacy they began.
So, needless to say, when I opened those boxes… it was a very good Day!
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2 comments:
As a Direct Moses Day Desc - Gr-Gr-Granddaughter, I am extremely happy that Glenn and Jim took the time and effort to contact me and I was able to contribute and now share in their well deserved tribute noted here.
My way of showing them a 'tribute' for the continuance of Patricia Day's immense collection of DAY history and research notes and now their excellent compilation of all.
Mimi Taylor
Moses DAY + Sarah Sessions
>Louisa+George Norman Pierce
>Miriam+Kenyon Yale Taylor, Sr
>K.Y.Taylor,JR + Maryan Alice Hyde to me. [Miriam Pierce Taylor]
212 Years to date [2010] of fine lineage and the 'never ending search' is still on to go back from 1798 [Moses Day's birth] a few more hundred years.
At the beginning of this academic year, my assistant head of school called me into his office and showed me a suspicious email in which the writer was requesting information about a Rebecca Day Reynolds who was apparently in the employ of Brentwood College School. I was, he insisted, distantly related to him (by marriage, as it transpired). Interested, but wary and bristly, I contacted one Glenn Wallace and asked how we could possibly be related to one another. His response “through Moses Day” elicited my drop jaw confession that I had christened my youngest son William MOSES George on account of that relative. Since then, my family tree has been revealed to me in fabulous detail. I now understand why the same son has such curly hair and an uncanny sense of rhythm…
Glenn and Jim are our family and we are blessed beyond reckoning to count them as kin. This winter, my eldest son, Sam, travelled to Washington and New York, becoming the first of the Vancouver Island tribe to meet them. Fantastic hosts and hilarious ambassadors to their “neck of the woods”, they regaled Sam with their hospitality and tremendous sense of fun and irreverence.
Thanks, Glenn, for all that you have done in pulling this family together.
XOXO Rebecca
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