Woman’s hobby turns into a business tracing family backgrounds

By Elise Zwicky For Chronicle Media

Eureka resident Kimberly Joye Mullins is available to do genealogy research for the public and to teach people how to do their own research through her new business, the Joyful Genealogist. (Photo courtesy of Kimberly Joye Mullins)

A Eureka woman has found so much joy in researching her own family that she’s started a business to help others trace their roots, too.

“My philosophy is there is no greater history than your own,” said Kimberly Joye Mullins, who has named her new business the Joyful Genealogist.

With 16 years of hands-on research experience under her belt, the North Carolina native is working toward becoming certified through an on-line program offered by the Canada-based National Institute for Genealogical Studies.

“They are the only genealogical program in the world that gives you accreditation when you graduate,” said Mullins, who’s also the president of the Woodford County Historical Society. “There are 42 classes in the program, and I’ve finished 15 already. My goal is to be done by the end of this year.”

Mullins first began researching her own family as a way to show her kids where they came from.

“I was from North Carolina but they had been born up here, and they knew very little about their southern heritage,” she said of her son and daughter, ages 20 and 23. “So I began a project to have something to leave for them for years down the road when they’re actually interested in it, and it just kind of blossomed into a passion.”

Mullins, who moved to the Midwest after her first marriage and has lived in Eureka for five years, has traced one branch of her family all the way back to William the Conquerer.


Kimberly Joye Mullins has learned to find genealogy clues in old photos, including this one of her mother, Peggy, and her mother’s brother, James. (Photo courtesy of Kimberly Joye Mullins)

She’s also learned through her research that her second great-grandfather lost his leg in the Civil War. “I found a newspaper article in North Carolina that revealed he was given $75 by the North Carolina General Assembly for a peg leg,” she said, adding that she eventually was able to obtain a photograph of him that shows the artificial leg.

“You start to feel like you know these people. One of the greatest things for me is when you can find that picture so you can put a face to the name,” Mullins added.

Since she just started her business this month, Mullins hasn’t taken on any clients yet, but she has helped friends trace their roots over the years.

“I’m working on a project for a friend I went to high school with that has been kind of fascinating,” she said. “She was born mulatto, so she knew she had white and black roots. It turns out that the Caucasian side of her family began a law firm that’s been in existence for over 100 years, and the African-American side of her family were pirates.”

By transcribing a census record for one of the woman’s African-American ancestors, Mullins discovered he was a World War 1 veteran. That helped lead her to more information since the troops were segregated then, which meant he could only have been in one of about five regimes, she said.

While a lot of genealogy research can be done online, Mullins said travel is sometimes required. Having lived overseas for 18 months with her husband, who works for Caterpillar, she was able to find the gravestones of ancestors in Ely, England, and visit a Scottish castle turned bed-and-breakfast that was owned by other ancestors centuries ago.

Kimberly Joye Mullins, who’s been researching her family for 16 years and has started a business to help others do genealogy research, uncovered this photograph of her grandfather, Clarence Wade Cruze, as a little boy with his parents, Oscar Cruze and Rose Vineyard Cruze. (Photo courtesy of Kimberly Joye Mullins)

“There is a lot you can do online, but I think the mistake people make is not realizing that some of the most important documents in the world will never been seen on the internet. That’s where traveling and researching and knowing where to look are so important,” she said.

Mullins is planning a trip to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., to do research in the spring, and she’s hoping to go with her father to the National Personnel Records Center/National Archives in St. Louis soon to obtain copies of his military records.

Mullins said her goal is not only to do research for people, but to teach them how to do it.

“I’m more than happy to research for anyone, but I also want to create programs that I can use to teach people how to do their own research. I want to make them as passionate as I am about finding out about their own history,” she said.

Mullins said her research fees will vary depending on the scope of each project.

“I’ll sit down with (clients) and together we will write out what their goals are and then we’ll negotiate a price. Some things aren’t very hard to figure out if you know where you’re looking, and other things are very labor intensive,” she said.

The greatest joy Mullins has found in researching her family is the sense of belonging it’s given her.


Genealogist Kimberly Joye Mullins, who’s started a business to help others trace their roots, said finding old photos to put a face to a name is one of the biggest rewards of genealogy. Pictured here are Mullins’ great Uncle Timothy Lee (left) and great-grandfather King Pharoh Lee. (Photo courtesy of Kimberly Joye Mullins)

“I was an only child and the only grandchild on both sides,” she said. “Through my research, I have found so many cousins, so I have a sense of belonging and family.”

Mullins’ research and DNA testing even led her to a distant cousin who was born in New Jersey but lives right across the field from her in Eureka.

“It really is a small world,” she said.

For more information about hiring Mullins to do genealogy research or present a workshop, call her at (309) 360-9945 or visit the Joyful Genealogist Facebook page. She expects to launch her website soon at www.thejoyfulgenealogist.com.

 

 

 

 

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