Meet Your Researchers: Wilma Evans Wayt

Wilma was the first Wayt researcher I had met in person. She graciously opened her massive archive - a number of large three-ring binders of meticulously type-written notes - and allowed me to scan many of the pages for my own use. As it stands over five years later, I am still only half way through the material! Wilma speaks of that moment when she was 'hooked' - well, after I had spent the afternoon looking at all that family history, I became that way myself. We all should appreciate Wilma's tremendous contribution to our database.

There are very few serious Wayt family researchers who are not familiar with Wilma Evans Wayt, wife of Lee Elwood "Dee" Wayt. Shortly after their marriage in 1974, Wilma "started receiving letters and telephone calls from folks researching the Wayt name." Wilma obliged a request to research information about a Wayt burial in her local area, and the rest is history: "We located his marker and another relative - same cemetery. I was hooked."

We all have initial Wayt researcher contacts and Wilma's was the late Margaret Ruff, another well-known Wayt family member who spent over 40 years researching the family tree. "She sent me a lot of information," Wilma notes. "Her grandmother's maiden name was Wayt [Eliza Jane Wayt Dennis] and related to 'our' family."

As Wilma continued her research, her husband, Lee (who passed away in 1998) noted that he knew some of the folks she was turning up, but had never known that they were relatives.

"Genealogy can be fun, exciting and time consuming," Wilma concludes. "A little bit of information can make your whole day. It's like being in a different world. You can become obsessed with it. Happy hunting!"